B 

2798 


UC-NRLF 


O 

o 


TLbc  XHuivcr^it^  ot  (Ibicaoo 


FOUNDED  BY  JOHN  O  ROCKCFBLLKR 


THI:  COXSTITUTIVH  AM)  KHGULATIVK 
FRLXCIFLHS  IN  KANT 


A  DISSERTATION 

SUBMITTED   TO   THE    FACULTY   OF   THE    GRADUATE   SCHOOL   OF   ARTS 

AND   LITERATURE   IN   CANDIDACY   FOR   THE   DEGREE 

OF  DOCTOR  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

(department  of  philosophy) 


BY 

ELIJAH  JORDAN 


CHICAGO 
1912 


TIbe  "Clnircrsitt?  of  Cblcaoo 

FOUNDED    BY  JOHN    O     ROCKEFILLER 


THE  CONSTITUTIVE  AND  REGULATIVE 
PRINCIPLES  IX  KANT 


A  DISSERTATION 

SUBMITTED   TO   THE   FACULTY   OF   THE    GRADUATE   SCHOOL   OF   ARTS 

AND   LITERATURE   IN   CANDIDACY   FOR   THE   DEGREE 

OF   DOCTOR   OF   PHILOSOPHY 

(departsient  of  philosophy) 


BY 

ELIJAH  JORDAN 


CHICAGO 

191 2 


vV^. 


,'    '        •     •  • 

•  •      •   •,. 


Composed  and  Printed  By 

The  University  of  Chicago  Press 

Chicago,  Illinois,  U.S.A. 


COXTF.XTS 

CHATTER  AGE 

I.   Introduction 5 

II.   The  Ideality  of  Time  and  Space  as  the  Source  of  the  Dis- 
tinction BETWEEN  Constitutive  and  Regulative  Principles  .  14 

III.    Kant's  Conception  OF  Quantity  AS  A  Constitutive  Principle  19 

I\'.   Intensive  Quantity  as  a  Constitutive  Principle     .      .      .      .  2g 

\'.   The  Regulative  Principles 35 

VI.  Conclusion 51 


257G99 


CHAPTER  I 

INTRODUCTION 

The  purpose'  of  this  essay  is  to  inquire  into  Kant's  reasons  for  the 
classification  of  principles  as  constitutive  and  regulative,  and  to  find, 
if  possible,  how  far  and  in  what  sense  the  distinction  holds.  The  method 
employed  will  appeal  to  the  use  of  the  princijiles  in  experience.  The 
inquiry  will  not  extend  beyond  the  limits  of  the  application  of  the 
principles  of  the  understanding,  it  being  assumed  that  any  other  use  of 
the  principles  as  constitutive  or  regulative  has  its  basis  within  those 
limits. 

Kant  is  asking  in  what  the  certainty  of  knowledge  consists.  He 
assumes  that  knowledge,  when  conceived  of  as  the  whole  of  our  recorded 
and  present  subjective  experience,  has  somewhere  a  stable  point  with 
reference  to  which  changes  have  significance,  and  from  which  progress 
takes  its  direction.  This  point  is  called  the  object,  and  the  certainty  of 
knowledge  is  established  when  its  relation  to  the  object  is  determined. 
All  difficulties  which  arise  in  connection  with  the  description  of  the 
knowledge  process  are  just  questions  of  the  nature  of  this  relation; 
and  they  may  all  be  summed  up  as  the  problem  of  the  definition  of  the 
object.  What  constitutes  the  difficulty  in  the  case  of  any  definition  of 
the  object,  is  the  tendency,  on  the  one  hand,  to  put  the  definition  in 
terms  of  our  particular  subjective  experiences,  and  on  the  other,  to  have 
left  as  unaccountable  a  realistic  remainder  after  the  subjective  definition 
has  been  made. 

The  first  of  these  tendencies  suggests  the  "construction"  of  the 
object;  the  second  the  discovery  of  the  object  indirectly  and  in  a  "regu- 
lative" way.  Kant's  justification  of  construction  claims  a  basis  in  the 
fact  of  the  a  priori  certainty  of  mathematical  knowledge;  and  his  justi- 
fication of  regulation  in  the  fact  of  the  practical  certainty  of  empirical 
knowledge.  At  the  outset  he  claims  that  "one  part  of  this  knowledge, 
namely,  the  mathematical,  has  always  been  in  possession  of  perfect 
trustworthiness;  and  thus  produces  a  favorable  presumption  with 
regard  to  other  parts  also,  although  these  may  be  of  a  totally  different 
nature."^  It  is  probable  that  the  other  parts  here  referred  to  are  the 
knowledge  of  morality,  but  the  real  difficulty  is  whether  the  presumption 

'  Results  are  summarized  on  the  last  page  of  the  essay. 

^A.,p.  4;  B.,  p.  8. 

S 


6  THE   CONSTITUIIVE   AND   REGULATIVE   PRINCIPLES   IN   K-\NT 

holds  favorable  with  respect  to  perceptual  experience.  The  purpose 
of  this  essay  may  be  stated  again  as  an  inquiry  as  to  how  far  this  favor- 
able presumption  may  be  said  to  hold  good. 

To  examine  the  process  of  construction  calls  for  an  examination  of 
the  concept  of  quantity,  and  the  results  obtained  here  will  lead  us  to 
notice  the  nature  and  extent  of  the  application  of  the  regulative  prin- 
ciples. When  the  latter  have  been  established  in  their  logical  connec- 
tions, it  will  be  necessary  to  show  their  identity  with  the  constitutive 
principles,  not,  however,  through  the  complicated  machinery  employed 
by  Kant,  but  through  the  simple  characters  of  objects  in  experience. 

Construction  is  in  pure  intuition.  Many  questions  arise,  however, 
in  connection  with  pure  intuition,  as  e.g..  What  is  pure  intuition  ?  What 
does  construction  in  pure  intuition  mean  ?  Kant's  answer  to  the  first 
of  these  questions  is  that  pure  intuition  is  space  and  time,  and  as  such, 
is  valid  as  an  object,  and  is  definable  as  a  rule  of  synthesis  in  the  time 
relations  of  representations.  This  answer  does  not  simplify  matters, 
for  it  answers  the  epistemological  question  perhaps  too  hastily,  in  any 
case,  abstractly.  The  intuitions  are  now  referred  to  the  real  in  sensation, 
and  the  question  is  whether  the  latter  may  be  constructed  quantitatively. 
Looked  at  more  closely,  cjuantity  is  seen  to  have  connections  with  all  the 
other  categories  through  time. 

For  Kant  there  is  a  pure  consciousness  of  quantity,  or  a  conscious- 
ness in  which  no  other  character  is  involved;  but  of  quantity  in  this 
sense  there  are  no  axioms,  and  hence  no  general  certainty.  Where 
there  are  axioms,  quantUas  becomes  quanta  and  is  schematized  as  num- 
ber. It  is  the  fact  that  quantitas  becomes  quanta  which  brings  it  into 
relation  with  the  other  categories;  and  if  the  principles  involved  here 
are  constitutive,  they  are  also  regulative. 

At  this  point  Kant  abandons  quantity  for  its  schema  number,  which 
again  raises  the  question  of  the  relation  of  sense  and  thought.  Its 
definition  involves  time  and  the  consciousness  of  succession  as  a  syn- 
thesis. But  succession  in  time  with  regard  to  objects  involves  phe- 
nomena in  relations  of  space;  this  again  involves  substance  and  the 
permanent,  with  reference  to  which  time  is  constitutive,  and  an  act, 
which  would  decide  the  question  in  favor  of  construction.  Time, 
however,  constructs  only  possibilities,  to  which  there  are:  (i)  realistic 
objections  with  the  argument  of  evolution;  and  (2)  skeptical  objections. 
To  (i)  Kant  would  say  that  evolution  is  merely  a  "predicable"  of 
time-quantity,  and  does  not  apply.  To  (2)  there  is  appeal  to  the 
transcendental  concept  of  the  possibility  of  experience. 


INTRODUCTION  7 

Kant  at  this  point  seems  to  realize  that  as  time  and  numljer,  (juantity 
ends  in  abstraction  and  does  not  touch  objects.  If  quantity  is  to  be  a 
valid  concept  a  content  must  be  discovered  for  it,  so  a  distinction  must 
be  made.  Quantity  is  extensive  quantity;  and  if  the  possibility  of 
experience  and  hence  the  transcendental  argument  is  to  hold  good,  it 
must  be  remembered  that  the  possibility  of  experience  is  just  what 
makes  the  synthesis  of  the  homogeneous  a  quantity.  This  synthesis 
as  abstract  quantity  is  empty  conception  and  the  bare  possibility.  To 
find  a  content  ioc  the  synthesis  we  must  appeal  to  the  homogeneous  in 
space.  Generalized  time  formulas  involve  space;  but  the  generalized 
synthesis  is  the  object  as  the  permanent  substance,  hence  space  and  time 
are  both  necessary  to  quantity,  that  is,  space  is  the  schema  of  time  just 
as  time  succession  as  number  is  the  schema  of  quantity.  Time  as 
a  schema  applies  to  objects  in  only  a  computative  sense,  and  provides 
for  succession  only.  But  the  real  phenomena  demand  their  coexistence, 
so  quantity  must  be  schematized  as  space  also.  Quantity  schematized 
as  both  time  and  space  involves  the  permanent. 

But  if  space  as  well  as  time  is  involved  in  construction  we  are  carried 
beyond  the  idea  of  quantity  as  merely  extensive.  To  construct  the  object 
of  experience,  quantity  must  be  definitely  limited,  and  as  such  becomes 
intensive  quantity.  For  knowledge,  differences  of  extensity  are  im- 
material, and  to  make  a  knowledge  difference  extensity  must  be  qualified. 
.\s  qualified  by  a  line  of  approach  to  the  real,  quantity  is  characterized  by 
ditTerences  of  degree.  Quality  has  a  statement  in  terms  of  a  priori 
ix)ssibilities,  for  it  must  be  a  priori  if  there  is  to  be  formal  construction. 
In  what  sense  is  quality  a  priori  i'  The  a  priori  in  the  sensuous  intuition 
with  respect  to  quality  is  the  mathematical  principle  that  it  must  have 
a  degree.  As  such  it  is  described  as  (i)  a  conceptual  mean  in  a  series; 
(2)  a  moment  of  consciousness;  and  (3)  a  subjective  fact.  Neither  of 
these  descriptions  is  consistently  worked  out  by  Kant. 

A  reconstruction  may  begin  here  upon  the  basis  of  results  thus  far 
reached.  The  principle  of  the  possibility  of  experience,  if  the  reference 
is  to  the  concrete  actuality  of  experience,  is  applicable  only  to  those 
principles  which  operate  only  in  a  regulative  way.  The  distinctions 
drawn  so  rigidly  between  sense  and  understanding  and  space  and  time 
must  be  ignored;  and  whatever  principles  were  found  a|)plicable  to 
experience  after  those  distinctions  are  made,  must  be  regarded  merely  as 
special  applications  of  the  i)rinciples  which  operate  within  experience 
taken  as  a  whole  and  with  all  its  connections  intact.  In  this  way  the 
constitutive  principles  are  analytic  only,  and  serve  to  excmj^lify  the 


8  THE   CONSTITUTIVE   AND  REGULATIVE   PRINCIPLES   IN   K.\NT 

method  of  the  regulative  principles.  They  do  not  construct  the  object, 
but  merely  represent  to  consciousness  the  object  as  the  purpose  of  the 
complex  of  the  representations  in  consciousness.  While  we  allow  an 
independent  function  to  the  constitutive  principles,  our  notion  of  the 
object  is  the  crudely  realistic  one,  and  we  have  upon  our  hands  the 
ambiguous  question  of  representation.  This  question  disappears  as 
meaningless  when  the  constitutive  principles  are  shown  to  apply  only 
to  the  imaged  stage  of  a  purpose,  which  is  completed  as  an  object  when 
upon  the  method  of  the  regulative  principles  it  is  connected  at  all  points 
with  experience. 

The  nature  of  the  regulative  principles  is  then  to  be  understood  from 
a  proper  estimation  of  these  experience  connections,  and  these  connec- 
tions can  be  corrrectly  estimated  only  when  approached  from  the  point 
of  view  of  their  unity  of  purpose.  It  thus  simplifies  our  method  when 
we  regard  all  experience  connections  as  instants  of  causation,  while  all 
other  regulative  principles  will  come  out  in  the  account  as  corollaries 
of  this  one  principle.  It  is  just  from  this  general  point  of  view  that  the 
first  result  prohibits  application  of  causality  to  the  sequence  in  time 
only,  for  that  sequence  never  reaches  the  consequent  which  we  call  the 
object.  Causation  regarded  as  merely  temporal  shows  by  its  failure 
that  some  other  idea  is  needed  to  complete  it.  This  qualifying  character 
is  found  to  be  the  very  connectedness  of  experience  itself.  Causation 
in  experience  is  thus  seen  to  involve  more  than  time,  in  fact  every  general 
characterization  of  experience  is  involved  in  any  concrete  instance  of  it. 

How  are  objects  known,  is  the  fundamental  question  for  Kant,  and 
his  famous  formulation  of  it  as,  How  are  synthetic  judgments  a  priori 
possible,  arises  from  a  recognition  of  the  fact  that  all  judgments  that 
are  significant  get  their  significance  from  a  point  of  reference  beyond 
the  individual  intent  from  which  they  start — in  other  words  from 
reference  to  an  object.  That  significant  judgments  are  "objective" 
is  true,  however  it  may  be  necessary  to  define  the  object.  The  relation 
of  thought  to  its  object  is  the  locus  of  all  questions  of  validity,  and 
therefore  the  proper  object  of  all  philosophical  investigation.  That 
same  famous  question  was  less  formally  and  more  intelligibly  stated 
before  the  form  of  the  Kritik  was  worked  out,  as  is  shown  by  the  letter  to 
Herz,'  in  which  its  form  is,  "Wie  konnen  sich  Begriffe  a  priori  auf 
Objecte  beziehen?"  Questions  of  the  nature  and  limits  of  thought  are 
unintelligible  apart  from  considerations  of  the  nature  of  the  objects. 

There  have  been  various  explanations  of  the  relations  which  thought 

»  See  Riehl,  Der  philosophische  Kriticismus,  Vol.  I,  p.  329. 


INTKODUCTION  9 

bears  to  its  object — that  tlie  object  jxirticii)ates  in  the  nature  of  the  idea, 
that  the  object  is  represented  in  the  idea,  that  the  object  is  unreal  and  a 
miscarriage  of  the  idea,  that  the  relation  between  the  two  is  unique 
and  must  be  taken  without  explanation,  that  the  object  is  the  con- 
struction of  the  idea — the  latter  having  various  interpretations.  For 
instance,  the  object  is  constructed  out  of  a  perfectly  undifferentiated 
original  matter  through  the  process  of  time;  or  the  object  is  made  by  the 
idea  out  of  the  original  elements  of  the  latter.  All  of  these  Kant  reduces 
to  two  general  doctrines,'  namely,  representation  and  construction,  and 
he  accepts  the  latter.  It  requires,  however,  the  whole  of  the  Kritik  to 
explain  in  just  what  sense  he  holds  to  construction.  Briefly,  the  object 
is  constructed  by  the  idea  out  of  original  forms;  but  the  freedom  of 
inditTerence  is  not  given  the  active  thought  principle,  since  the  latter 
has  itself  a  definite  constitution  within  which  only  it  can  operate. 
Thought  is  limited  by  itself;  has  its  own  bounds  set  for  it  in  its  own 
nature.  Within  these  bounds  it  is  free  to  construct  its  object,  to  say 
what  it  will  mean,  to  determine  its  own  direction. 

Thus  there  are  objects  of  the  understanding  and  "'ideals"  of  the 
reason;  and  if  the  latter  are  as  objects  problematical,  it  is  because 
objects  are  needed  when  the  forms  of  space  and  time  do  not  lie  in  the 
direction  in  which  the  need  becomes  intention.  The  former  are  deter- 
mined after  the  analogy  of  mathematics  by  or  according  to  principles 
that  are  constitutive;  the  latter  on  the  analogy  of  experience  by  or 
according  to  principles  that  are  regulative.^  It  will  be  shown  below, 
however,  that  the  distinction  between  constitutive  and  regulative  is  not 
so  much  one  of  principles  as  one  of  objects;  and  that  all  principles,  in 
that  they  relate  to  objects,  are  both  constitutive  and  regulative. 

A  distinction  might  here  be  made  between  principles  of  thought  and 
principles  of  knowledge.  The  former  get  their  distinctive  character 
as  the  active  agencies  at  work  in  the  process  of  thought,  or,  if  the  ditTer- 
ent  faculties  of  mind  are  not  ditTerentiated  so  sharply,  represent  only  the 
diiTerent  directions  or  means  by  which  thought  seeks  its  object.  The 
latter  have  value,  after  the  object  is  obtained  and  defined,  in  comparing 
and  organizing  the  objects  of  thought  in  the  .system  of  experience  as  a 
whole.  The  former  are  subjective,  i^rinciples  of  mind,  and  are  active 
and  constitutive   in   determining  objects.-'     The   latter  are  objective, 

'  A.,  p.  Qj.     See  also  the  letter  to  Ilerz.  February  21,  1772,  Kant's  W'erkc,  Kirch- 
mann's  ed.,  Vol.  VIII,  pp.  402-9. 

'.A.,  p.  179;  B.,  p.  221. 

i  A.,  pp.  126,  300,  718-19;  B-,  PP-  3S6,  746-47- 


lO  THE   CONSTITUTIVE   AND   REGULATIVE   PRINCIPLES   IN   KANT 

principles  of  the  determined  object,  and  relate  to  those  characters  which 
allow  the  object  to  be  used  as  a  term  of  the  comparative  judgment,  and 
to  be  fitted  into  a  tentative  whole  of  knowledge.  They  are  more  than 
this,  however,  in  that  when  the  idea  of  a  conditional  whole  is  justified 
through  a  comparison  of  objects,  these  principles  may  go  on  from  the 
suggestion  of  the  structure  of  the  whole  to  the  determination  of  the 
direction  in  which  objects  may  be  sought;  that  is,  they  find  characters 
in  the  objects  organized  which  suggest  the  grounds  of  the  possibility 
of  objects,  find  the  conditions  in  general  according  to  which  the 
object  must  conform,  and  so  determine  a  priori  what  may,  in  a  given 
direction,  be  an  object  of  thought  at  all. 

Thus  the  conditions  of  the  possibility  of  experience  are  laid  in  the 
constructive  capacity  of  thought  in  experience,  and  this  idea  of  the 
possibility  of  experience  becomes  the  guide  to  the  disposition  of  objects 
in  knowledge  or  their  arrangement  in  science,  as  well  as  to  the  actual 
character  and  constitution  which  the  object  must  have  if  it  is  to  be  an 
object  of  thought  at  all.  These  regulative  principles  are  thus  not  with- 
out influence  upon  the  object,  either  as  to  form  or  content,  since  they 
indicate  the  direction  in  which  construction  is  possible;  and,  besides, 
in  the  opposite  direction,  or  after  construction  is  determined  as  possible, 
they  determine  the  extent  to  which  it  is  valid. 

The  regulative  principles  are  therefore  indirectly  or  mediately  consti- 
tutive. They  are,  when  operative,  synthetic  a  priori  judgments  in 
which  the  appropriation  of  the  new  is  mediated  by  the  idea  of  the  old 
in  experience.  And  they  determine  content,  since  they  define  the  con- 
stitution of  things  in  such  a  way  as  to  be  able  to  say  that  if  there  is  to 
be  a  content  at  all,  it  must  be  found  in  this  or  that  direction  and  under 
these  or  those  conditions.  This  is  no  more  than  saying  that  the  sense 
experience  as  the  "real"  in  a  possible  experience  is  determined  a  priori 
as  under  the  bounds  of  a  constitution  which  is  or  may  be  known,  and 
that,  within  these  bounds,  content  is  determined  upon  or  selected  with 
respect  to  characters  of  the  known  constitution  which  are  then  and  there 
the  object  of  the  speculative  purpose.  In  other  words,  sense  is  under 
the  law  imposed  by  the  understanding,  its  forms  are  also  concepts  of 
the  understanding,  and  its  content  therefore  dependent  upon  the  pur- 
pose of  the  understanding.  And  the  inclusion  of  the  forms  of  space 
and  time  within  the  system  of  the  concepts  is  just  what  is  meant  by  the 
"ideality"  of  space  and  time,  or  the  transcendental  idealism.  This 
point  is  also  the  basis  of  the  distinction  between  constitutive  and  regula- 
tive principles,  and  for  the  idea  of  a  constitutive  function  of  mind. 


INTRODUCTION  1 1 

Constitutive  principles  are  constitutive  of  objects  directly;  the 
exercise  of  the  unclerstandinj^  under  them  ^ives  the  object  in  its  reality, 
not  merely  in  answering  to  their  form  but  in  producing  their  content. 
The  forms  represented  by  constitutive  principles  are  grounds  or  reasons 
for  experience,  or  characters  of  the  constitution  of  experience — exj^eri- 
ence  being  assumed  as  having  a  defmite  constitution.  These  grounds 
are  active  as  "causes,"'  since  no  object  of  knowledge  can  be  conceived 
except  in  its  distinction  from  its  ground.^  And  it  makes  no  difference 
here  if  the  ''causality  of  the  cause"  is  freedom,  since  the  event  dis- 
tinguished as  object  could  not  occur  except  as  it  is  recognized  as  necessa- 
rily related  to  something  else.^  If  no  object  can  stand  alone  in  experience, 
that  is,  if  no  object  is  possible  except  as  it  has  relations  which  determine 
it  an  object,  these  relations  show  its  dependence  upon  something  else  as 
necessary  (as  under  the  conception  of  possible  experience),  and  the 
something  else  must  be  looked  upon  as  a  cause  or  reason  for  the  object.-' 
The  causes  are  in  this  case  the  forms  of  the  understanding,  and  they  are 
the  grounds  w'hich  determine  a  priori  the  possibility  of  there  being  an 
object.  They  say  that  if  there  is  to  be  an  object  at  all  (and  the  first 
act  of  consciousness  assumes  that  objects  can  be)  that  object  must  con- 
form to  the  limits,  or  be  within  the  bounds,  or  square  with  the  general 
reasons  why  there  can  be  an  object.  This  calls  attention  to  the  fact  that 
the  determination  of  the  object  carries  with  it  the  recognition  that  there 
are  certain  conditions  upon  which  the  object  depends,  which  conditions 
not  only  may  be  but  are  known,  and  may  be  known  independently  of 
the  particular  object  as  the  condition  of  the  object  in  general.  The 
main  question  here  is  whether  these  conditions  are  "merely  subjective" 
or  really  objective,  so  that  our  mere  intention  toward  the  object  may  be 
distinguished  from  the  actual  construction  of  the  object — whether  our 
dreaming  can  be  distinguished  from  our  thinking.  For  Kant,  this 
distinction  can  be  made  with  absolute  confidence:  some  objects  can  be 
known  completely,  both  as  to  form  and  matter,  so  there  is  knowledge 
of  absolute  certainty.     This  knowledge  is  mathematical. 

Regulative  principles  are  constitutive  of  the  possibility  of  objects, 

■  .\.,  p.  202;  B.,  p.  247.  'A.,  p.  125. 

i  A.,  p.  227;  B.,  p.  279. 

*  That  the  idea  of  constniction  involves  the  regulative  principles  of  causation  and 
community  will  be  shown  later  (chap.  iv).  That  is,  principles  of  the  quantitative 
and  qualitative  nature  of  objects  arc  insutVicient  to  show  that  objects  can  through 
their  individual  content  be  conceived  as  under  the  conditions  of  possible  experience,  or 
belong  to  a  world  of  experience.  .\s  under  the  mathematical  principles,  when  rigidly 
applied,  the  object  becomes  a  little  world  in  itself,  and  the  plurality  of  objects  the 
aggregate  world  of  monads  which  "have  no  windows." 


12  THE   CONSTITUTIVE   AND   REGULATIVE   PRINCIPLES   IN   KANT 

which,  if  actualized,  would  have  as  attributes  characters  corresponding 
to  and  known  from  the  more  general  relations  of  objects  in  experience. 
These  relations  are  imperfectly  conceived  because  of  the  limitations  of 
the  understanding  to  the  a  priori  forms  of  objects.  If  the  intuitions 
of  objects  in  experience  were  identical  with  the  conceptual  forms  of  those 
objects,  as  is  assumed  in  the  mathematical  principles,  there  would  be 
no  need  of  regulative  principles,  since  the  ideal  object  would  not  be 
necessary,  being  realized  in  the  actual.  All  principles  would  be  consti- 
tutive if  the  intuition  were  given  with  the  concept.  But  the  field  wherein 
such  occurs  is  limited  to  objects  of  a  particular  kind;  so  that  if  there  be 
principles  beyond  that  field,  they  must  be  merely  regulative,  or  guides  for 
the  thought  toward  a  region  where,  in  the  absence  of  intuition,  there  may 
be  objects  known  by  certain  necessities  due  to  the  characters  of  objects 
known  actually  in  both  intuition  and  conception.  The  ideal  is  of  course 
to  identify  the  two  kinds  of  principles  by  finding  that  their  fields  of 
operation  coincide  in  the  idea  of  the  unity  of  the  world.  This  ideal  is 
that  of  the  speculative  purpose,  and  the  character  of  its  knowledge  is 
mathematical,  where  the  intuition  loses  itself  by  inclusion  in  the  con- 
ceptual. Subjectively,  or  on  the  anthropological  side,  the  ideal  would 
include  objects  of  will  and  feeling,  where  quality  gets  its  own,'  and 
where  the  conceptual  is  exhibited  in  intuition.  On  the  side  of  the 
grounds  of  such  an  ideal,  the  unity  would  represent  the  identity  of  the 
sense  with  the  understanding  in  an  "intuitive  understanding"  whose 
methods  of  operation  would  be  principles  constitutive  completely  and 
without  limitation,  that  is,  principles  not  only  of  objectivity  in  general, 
but  also  of  the  object  in  the  concrete. 

In  our  own  experience,  according  to  Kant,  the  mathematical  is  an 
instance  of  the  completely  valid  knowledge.  This  knowledge  may  there- 
fore be  taken  as  the  type  of  all  knowledge  upon  either  of  two  conditions. 
The  first  of  these  is  that  knowledge  as  such,  in  so  far  as  valid,  is  purely  a 
matter  of  quantity,  and  the  quantitative  relation  an  adequate  statement 
of  its  law.  The  second  is  that  knowledge  as  such,  and  as  including  the 
quantitative,  is  uniquely  qualitative,  and  capable  of  formulation  in  other 
than  mathematical  terms.     Quantity,  then,  is  a  narrow  abstraction.^ 

'  Later,  this  question  becomes  that  of  the  possibility  of  the  identity  of  extensive 
and  intensive  quantity. 

'  It  will  turn  out  that  quantity  is  a  thought  term,  with  reference  only  to  the  use 
of  the  intellect  in  laying  plans;  while  quality  (instead  of  being  merely,  as  for  Kant, 
intensive  quantity  with  reference  to  the  synthesis  in  space  and  time)  is  a  knowledge 
term,  with  reference  to  thought  as  objectified,  or  to  objects  in  their  character  of  fitness 
for  becoming  centers  of  reference  in  e.xperience.  Or,  briefly,  quality  refers  to  the 
significance  of  objects  for  knowledge. 


INTRODUCTION  1 3 

It  is  the  purpose  to  show  that  in  the  development  of  the  mathematical 
ideal,  Kant  had  in  mind  not  the  quantitative  character  of  reality,  but  a 
character  that  is  unique  ami  qualitative,  which  we  may  call  significance 
for  knowledge.  Upon  this  character  rest  Kant's  faith  in  the  ultimate 
rationality  or  knowability  of  the  world,  his  postulation  of  the  intelligible 
as  beyond  and  above  the  sensible,  and  his  doctrine  of  the  primacy  of  the 
practical  reason  as  the  faculty  through  which  objects  arc  known  without 
the  instrumentality  of  the  sense. 


CHAPTER  II 

THE   IDEALITY   OF   TIME    AND    SPACE   AS    THE    SOURCE   OF   THE 

DISTINCTION  BETWEEN  CONSTITUTIVE  AND 

REGULATIVE  PRINCIPLES 

We  have  seen  that  the  relation  of  the  forms  of  time  and  space  to  the 
concepts  of  the  understanding  is  the  locus  of  the  distinction  between  the 
constitutive  and  the  regulative  principles.  It  is  therefore  in  connection 
with  the  Aesthetic  that  the  discussion  of  that  distinction  should  begin. 
It  may  seem  that  since  time  and  space  are  called  perceptions,  and  there- 
fore regarded  as  inactive  and  as  having  no  function  but  to  await  a  con- 
tent from  sensation,  there  is  no  suggestion  in  the  Aesthetic  of  any  active 
faculty  which  might  have  constitutive  force.  Yet  the  mere  fact  of  the 
separation  of  perception  and  its  "given,"  from  the  faculties  which  are 
operative,  is  in  itself  significant  while  we  are  engaged  in  the  search  for 
the  object  of  knowledge. 

It  is  clear  that  sensation  of  itself  does  not  give  an  object,'  neither 
as  a  single  sensation  nor  as  a  sum  of  sensations  can  it  do  this.  For  the 
particulars  composing  a  sum  can  only  be  thought  analytically  and  con- 
secutively, and  the  sum  as  representing  the  particulars  is  only  a  mark 
which  suggests  their  enumeration.  Such  a  sum  gives  no  clue  to  the 
qualitative  character  of  the  particulars,  nor  indeed  do  these  characters 
enter  into  the  sum.  Qualities  are  independent  of  enumeration,  they 
cannot  be  counted,  but  only  the  instances  or  times  in  which  they  occur. 
Or,  at  best  only  kinds  of  qualities  can  be  enumerated,  that  is,  abstracted 
from  the  concrete  in  the  particulars.  But  these  abstractions  are  no 
objects,  since  when  they  are  found  in  experience  they  are  recognized  as 
mere  instruments. 

This  does  not  mean  that  there  may  not  be  qualitative  combinations, 
or  syntheses;  but  only  that  so  long  as  combination  is  numerical  the 
result  is  no  more  than  a  symbol,  or  abstract  representation  of  things, 
whereas  to  produce  a  new  thing  there  must  be  qualification  of  qualities, 
or  the  fusion  of  qualities  into  a  whole,  which,  as  a  whole,  shows  characters 
different  from  those  of  the  elements.  Besides  the  sense  elements  there 
are  others  which,  instead  of  adding  to  the  determinations  of  sense  in 
such  a  way  as  to  make  the  object  at  once  intelligible,  give  rise  to  the 

•A.,  p.  772;  B.,  p.  800. 

14 


THE   IDEALITY   OF   TIME    AND   SPACE  1 5 

very  question  as  to  how  the  representations  of  sense  can  enter  into  the 
idea  of  the  object  at  all.  That  is,  the  question  arises  out  of  the  relation 
of  the  mathematical  or  space-time  character  of  sensation  to  certain 
other  representations  of  the  objects,  which  have  significance  for  conscious- 
ness, and  are  distinguishable  from  the  sense  characters,  but  yet  are 
indubitable  characters  of  the  object.  Such  a  supersensible  character  is, 
for  Kant,  objectivity  itself.'  Thus  so  far  as  the  Aesthetic  is  concerned, 
no  objects  have  as  yet  entered  into  the  discussion. 

If  by  the  sum  of  sensations  it  is  meant  that  the  idea  of  the  object 
is  complex,  and  that  there  is  a  numl)er  of  distinguishable  characters  in 
it,  then  there  can  be  agreement;  but  agreement  on  the  possibility  of  dis- 
tinction is  itself  a  suggestion  toward  a  condition  more  promising  of  the 
concrete  than  mere  aggregation.  But  the  question  is,  What  is  the  nature 
and  the  source  of  the  complexity  ?^  Can  the  complexity  be  resolved  ?  and, 
if  so,  What  does  its  resolution  add  to  the  explanations  which  we  seek  ? 
To  say  that  the  object  is  complex  is  merely  to  qualify  the  object  yet 
further,  that  is  to  add  to  the  complexity,  unless  in  the  statement  there  is 
the  key  to  the  solution  of  the  complexity  in  terms  of  the  sources  and 
conditions  under  which  the  object  exists  and  is  known.  In  any  case, 
the  object  does  not  come  to  us  through  sense,  and  it  is  Kant's  recognition 
of  this  fact  that  calls  for  the  investigations  of  the  Analytic.  So  long 
as  the  forms  of  space  and  time  are  forms  of  intuition,  that  is,  so  long  as 
they  are  the  contentless  receptacles  of  individual  qualities  or  groups  of 
qualities,  furnished  through  sense,  there  is  no  going  on  toward  the 
defmition  of  the  object.  And  while  sensibility  is  regarded  as  a  distinct 
compartment  of  mind  which  hands  over  a  finished  product,  there  is  not 
only  no  contribution  to  the  solution  of  the  question  of  the  consciousness 
of  objects,  but  that  question  is  ruled  out  as  not  of  possible  solution,  since 
the  relation  between  the  two  compartments  of  mind  is  declared  irrational. 

Thus  it  is  not  a  satisfactory  solution  of  the  question  of  the  conscious- 
ness of  objects  to  say  that  one  department  of  mind  furnishes  one  part, 
another  department  another.  For  in  this  case  the  question  is  merely 
restated  as  that  of  the  unity  of  mind.  To  say  that  the  relation  of 
representation  obtains  among  different  departments  of  mind  does  not 
make  our  theory  of  knowledge  non-representational.  It  is  true  that  in 
this  form  the  question  is  somewhat  more  compactly  put,  but  its  discus- 
sion is  attended  with  many  diflficulties,  among  which  the  chief  is  the 
tendency  to  subjectivism.     But  the  difficulty  which  arises  in  connection 

'  .\.,  p.  290;  B.,  p.  346. 

'  Prolegomena,  NFahaffy  and  Bernard's  trans.,  p.  5. 


1 6  THE   CONSTITUTIVE   AND   REGULATIVE   PRINCIPLES   IN   KANT 

with  Kant  follows  upon  the  interpretation  of  the  notion  of  time  and  space 
as  forms  of  the  intuition.  Interpreted  passively  as  forms  of  the  sensi- 
bility which  by  the  mere  accident  of  their  form  mould  sense  content 
into  stereotyped  shapes  and  mechanically  drop  it  into  the  hopper  of  the 
understanding,  the  forms  of  time  and  space  render  the  question  of  the 
relation  of  consciousness  to  its  object  inexorably  insoluble.  But  regarded 
not  as  forms  of  sensibility  alone;  but  as  forms  or  schemes  of  the  under- 
standing for  the  sensibility,  thus  including  the  sensibility  within  the 
same  circle  of  purposes  as  the  other  faculties,  where  its  relation  to  the  rest 
is  explicable  in  terms  of  a  purpose  in  common  with  the  rest,  the  question 
of  the  unity  of  mind  is  not  so  hopeless.  In  this  sense,  however  sensuous 
the  application  of  the  time  and  space,  they  are  categories'  of  the  under- 
standing, and  they  are  different  in  character  from  the  other  categories 
only  in  that  they  have  a  more  highly  specialized  function. 

Thus  the  forms  cannot  hold  out  as  mere  forms,  as  merely  "ideal." 
They  are  real  "for  experience";  and  if  experience  is  meant  here  to 
include  possible  experience,  little  more  reality  could  be  asked  for  them. 
The  forms  of  time  and  space  are  realities,  and  are  principles  that  are 
operative  in  the  determination  of  objects.^  In  the  merest  intuition, 
therefore,  there  are  activities  tending  toward  the  construction  of  objects 
since  there  can  be  no  intuition  except  as  it  is  "  pure  "  or  related  to  thought. 
At  this  point  of  the  discussion  the  aim  is  merely  to  show  the  futility  of 
the  idea  of  a  mechanical  relation  between  sense  and  thought.  That 
the  forms  of  space  and  time  must  be  regarded  as  of  the  same  sort  as  the 
categories  will  get  consideration  later.  But  enough  has  been  said  to 
show  that  one  result  of  the  Copernican  discovery  is  the  necessity  of  the 
assumption  that  with  regard  to  objects  there  must  be  principles  whose 
operation  is  constructive,  and  that  these  principles  must  be  operative 
in  sense. 

Kant  takes  the  apparent  duality^  of  the  real  and  subjects  it  to  a  rigid 
examination,  and  he  quite  appropriately  begins  with  the  objective  part 
of  the  situation.''  The  most  general  determining  characters  of  the 
object  are  its  geometrical  or  space-time  determinations.  The  object  in 
a  common-sense  view  seems  to  be  constituted  of  them;  but  since  the 
object,  when  known,  is  known  within  a  situation  which  is  also  character- 

'  A.,  pp.  85,  720;  B.,  pp.  1 18,  748.     See  also  Riehl,  Der  philosophische  Krilicismus, 
Vol.  I,  pp.  350  ff.;  for  space  and  time  as  intuitions,  p.  346. 
=■  A.,  pp.  no,  120,  156,  224;  B.,  pp.  19s,  271. 
3  Cf.  Watson,  Kant  and  His  English  Critics,  p.  314. 
*  Even  if  it  must  be  admitted  that  his  starting-point  is  psychological. 


THE    IDEALITY   OF   TIME   AND   SPACE  1 7 

ized  as  other  than  objective,  the  question  occurs,  To  which  part  of  the 
situation  do  the  space-time  determinations  belong  ?  It  might  be  that 
they  belong  by  nature  to  the  knowing  or  conscious  part  of  the  situation. 
Kant  assumes  the  latter  and  sets  about  proving  the  ideality  of  space 
and  time.  It  is  worth  while  to  notice  that  space  and  time  are  "ideal" 
only  with  regard  to  the  objective  character  of  reality;  but  since  the 
objective  part  of  the  situation  is  irrefragably  bound  up  with  the  conscious 
part ;  and  since  what  belongs  to  the  conscious  part  as  having  special 
reference  to  the  objective  is  real,  then  space  and  time  are  real.  They 
belong  to  mind  as  real,  i.e.,  actual  characters  of  mind;  and  they  belong 
to  mind  as  "ideal,"  i.e.,  as  thought-of  objects.  But  the  ideality  or 
reality  of  space  and  time  is  a  distinction  which  has  significance  only 
when  the  dual  character  of  reality  is  under  consideration,  that  is,  real 
and  ideal  are  correlative  opposites  only  after  abstract  dichotomizing 
of  the  reality  situation,  and  would  not  appear  if  that  situation  were  left 
intact  or  were  not  thought  apart.'  Thus  in  another  sense  they  are  ideal, 
in  that  their  distinction  arises  only  ujx)n  the  conscious  examination  of 
the  conditions  under  and  within  which  consciousness  itself  "occurs," 
or  appears  in  its  opposition  to  the  non-conscious  "given."  Space  and 
time  are  not,  then,  real  characters  of  a  supposed  world  independent  of 
its  being  known,  but  are  such  as  appear  in  the  act  of  knowing  the  world. 
They  are  real  characters  of  the  situation  which  we  might  call  the  world- 
being-known,  and  if  we  can  identify  this  conception  with  the  common- 
sense  reality  from  which  we  started,  we  have  them  established  as  real 
characters  of  both  the  objective  and  the  subjective. 

Kant  has  recognized  this  real  character  of  space  and  time  as  a  uni- 
versal character  of  reality  in  his  definition  of  the  object,  in  which  the 
reality  of  the  object  is  made  necessarily  conformable  to  the  conditions 
of  knowing.'  This  is  true  even  of  the  thing-in-itself  when  that  specter 
is  defined  negatively,  since  it  is  then  that  which  does  not  conform  to  the 
conditions  of  knowing,  and  of  which  we  can  neither  assert  existence  nor 
non-existence.  Now  if  we  call  the  event  of  knowing  an  object  an 
experience,  and  the  conditions  under  which  such  an  event  may  occur  a 
possible  experience;  and  if  we  agree  with  Kant  that  "it  is  possible 
e.xperience  alone  that  can  impart  reality  to  our  concepts";^  then  space 
and  time  as  part  of  these  conditions  are  real  for  experience,  and  as  such 
are  real  for  the  whole  situation.  In  fact,  Kant's  proof  of  the  ideality 
of  space  and  time  is  a  proof  of  their  reality  for  experience,  since  they  are 

■  A.,  pp.  i7,  28;  B.,  pp.  4j,  44.  '  .\.,  p.  197;  H.,  p.  242 

J  A.,  p.  480;  cf.  also  pp.  28,  156;  B.,  pp.  517,  44,  195. 


1 8  THE   CONSTITUTIVE   AND   REGULATIVE   PRINCIPLES   IN   KANT 

of  the  conditions  under  which  alone  the  experience  of  objects  is  possible. 
And  the  proof  does  not  merely  leave  them  real  for  experience,  as  if  there 
were  a  wider  sphere  of  reality  where  they  do  not  have  determining 
force;  it  establishes  them  in  their  right  as  formative  factors'  in  the 
activity  of  consciousness  to  determine  limits  for  what  may  and  what 
may  not  be  experienced. 

The  ideality  of  time  and  space  has  little  significance  in  a  scheme  in 
which  the  subject  and  object  are  divorced.  Nothing  is  contributed  to 
their  explanation  when  they  are  held  as  applying  to  cither  alone  and 
without  reference  to  the  other.  If  they  are  regarded  as  forms  of  the 
mind,  "as  such, "'they  merely  restate  the  general  question  of  construc- 
tion, since  they  are  emptied  of  any  instruments  of  approach  to  the  matter 
they  are  supposed  to  limit;  if  they  are  "objective,"  that  is,  characters 
of  a  reality  independent  of  any  relation  to  mind,  the  object  which  they 
determine  is  by  their  attribution  to  it  cut  off  from  all  communication 
with  mind,  and  what  is  declared  as  possibly  unknowable  is  put  out  of  the 
sphere  where  explanations  can  be  demanded.  As  characters  of  either 
side  alone,  they  can  only  show  the  subject  and  object  staring  blankly  at 
each  other  across  a  hopeless  void.  An  independent  object  cannot  exist 
in  space  and  time,  since  such  an  object  is  completely  imdetermined; 
nothing  at  all  can  be  said  of  it,  not  even  that  it  occupies  or  is  in  space  or 
time,  since  these  are  characterizations  which  belong  only  to  the  object  as 
known  or  as  knowable;  and  as  such  the  object  is  not  independent.  The 
attribute  of  independence  closes  the  argument  with  regard  to  the  object. 

Space  and  time  are  determinations  which  arise  and  are  valid  only  in 
the  situation  of  an  object  being  known.  They  cannot  belong  either 
to  the  object  or  to  the  knowing  alone,  since  alone  there  is  no  object  and 
no  knowing.  Nor  are  they  attributes  of  a  mystical  relation  assumed 
between  the  object  and  its  being  known.  Space  and  time  are  that  rela- 
tion, and  they  vanish  with  the  disappearance  of  either  term  of  the  rela- 
tion. The  "ultimate  reality"  is  the  object-being-known,  and  the  being 
known  is  a  determination  of  the  object  by  space  and  time.  This  instance 
of  determined  existence  is  an  experience,  and  it  is  of  the  whole  situation 
that  space  and  time  are  "real."  The  ideality  of  space  and  time,  then, 
since  it  is  proved  by  isolating  the  ideal  element,  is  proved  real  of  lite 
whole  of  a  real  situation  when  the  ideal  is  shown  to  be  meaningless  if 
out  of  relation  to  the  objective  element.  The  ideality  argument  is 
thus  a  device  for  proving  their  reality  for  experience,  that  is,  for  the 
"ultimate  reality." 

"  Cf.  O'SuUivan,  Old  Criticism  and  New  Pragmatism,  p.  12. 


CHAPTER  III 

KANT'S  CONCEPTION  OF  QUANTITY  AS  A  CONSTITUTIVE 

PRINCIPLE 

There  is  no  question,  for  Kant,  but  that  objects  as  phenomena  may 
be  given  in  intuition;  the  important  matter  is  "how  subjective  condi- 
tions of  thought  can  have  objective  validity,  that  is,  become  conditions 
of  the  possibility  of  the  knowledge  of  objects."'  But  when  the  object 
as  given  in  intuition  is  regarded  in  its  relations  to  the  understanding, 
there  arises  the  question  of  the  complete  sum  of  the  conditions  under 
which  objects  are  adequately  known,  since  an  estimation  of  this  relation 
is  demanded  by  the  idea  of  possible  experience.-'  In  so  far  as  the  idea 
of  construction  is  concerned  this  is  a  quantitative  relation,  and  its  con- 
dition is,  that  all  concepts  be  exhibited  or  constructed  in  concrcto  and  yet 
a  priori  and  still  on  a  basis  of  pure  intuition.  This  relation  is  found 
as  fact  in  mathematical  knowledge.^ 

If  the  concept  of  the  object  as  constructed  in  pure  intuition  gives  us 
an  object,  and  if  the  pure  intuition  allows  the  predicate  to  be  joined  with 
the  concept  before  all  experience  or  individual  perception,-*  then  what 
is  the  difference  between  the  pure  intuition  and  the  concept  ?  We  have 
here,  as  it  seems,  not  advanced  beyond  the  original  assumption  that  in 
some  cases  (the  mathematical)  the  concept  of  the  understanding  lits 
onto  the  sensuous  experience  by  some  kind  of  pre-established  harmony. 
Kant's  clearest  statement  of  construction  in  intuition  is  made  in  the 
Discipline  of  Pure  Reason  where  he  discusses  that  question:  "Philo- 
sophical knowledge  is  that  which  reason  gains  from  concepts;  mathe- 
matical, that  which  it  gains  from  the  construction  of  concepts.  By 
constructing  a  concept  I  mean  representing  a  priori  the  intuition 
corresponding  to  it.     For  the  construction  of  a  concept,  therefore,  a 

non-empirical  intuition  is  required "^     Here   the  non-empirical 

intuition,  as  space  and  time,  has  the  general  validity  of  an  object,  since 
it  represents  the  formal  conditions  according  to  which  an  act  of  thought 
must  proceed.  But  these  conditions  as  relations  to  an  object  are 
"nothing  but  the  rendering  necessary-  the  connection  of  representations 

'  .\..  p.  89;  H.,  p.  I  20.  *  Ibid.,  sec.  7. 

'  A.,  p.  88;  H.,  p.  122.  s  A.,  p.  713;  H.,  p.  741. 

J  Prolegomena,  sec.  6. 

19 


20  THE   CONSTITUTIVE   AND   REGULATIVE   PRINCIPLES   IN   K.\NT 

in  a  certain  way,  and  subjecting  them  to  a  rule";  they  receive  their 
objective  character  "only  because  a  certain  order  is  necessary  in  the  time 
relations  of  our  representations."'  It  is  clear  that  Kant  is  here  making 
the  pure  intuition  approach  pretty  near  the  "consciousness  and  its 
internal  form  time."  It  is  an  act  that  operates  within  a  condition  or 
limit,  but  it  approaches  that  final  act  of  distinction  which  discovers 
the  object  in  general  as  the  ground  of  the  distinction  between  the  possible 
and  the  impossible.^ 

It  seems  that  it  is  assumed  here  that  concepts  meet  objects  directly, 
the  consequences  of  which  assumption  Kant  seeks  to  avoid  by  deciding 
that  ultimately  the  relation  of  sense  to  thought  is  one  of  degree  rather 
than  one  of  kind.^  But  if  knowledge  is  a  constructive  process  and  if 
thought  works  constitutively  upon  objects  in  knowing  them,  that  knowl- 
edge must  include  and  organize  sense  data,  and  that  thought  must  be 
sensuous  in  an  essential  part  of  its  nature.  This  Kant  would  always 
admit,  since  his  final  appeal  is  always  to  possible  experience;  and  that 
possible  experience  is  not  a  mere  concept  is  shown  in  the  statement  that 
"all  our  knowledge  relates,  in  the  end,  to  possible  intuitions,  for  it  is 
by  them  alone  that  an  object  can  be  given. "•*  As  it  is  idle  to  talk  about 
knowledge  or  consciousness  except  as  the  relation  to  objects  is  involved, 
so  it  is  irrelevant  to  speak  of  thought  except  as  it  involves  sensuous 
matter.  "There  is  no  intuition  a  priori  except  space  and  time,  the  mere 
forms  of  phenomena. "s  And  while  we  remember  that,  for  experience, 
the  "mere"  forms  of  space  and  time  are  as  real  as  anything  else,  we  see 
that  for  either  mathematical  or  philosophical  cognition  (which  latter 
results  in  knowledge  analytically  from  concepts),  they  must  be  conceived 
in  their  ordinary  experiential  sense,  and  as  such  they  relate  to  the  object 
in  its  real  character  in  perception,  as  Kant  admits.  "The  matter  of 
phenomena,  however,  by  which  things  are  given  us  in  space  and  time, 
can  be  represented  in  perception  only,  that  is,  a  posteriori."^  Now  if 
the  object  is  to  be  constructed,  since  "only  quantities  can  be  con- 
structed, "^  the  possibility  must  be  considered  whether  there  can  be  a 

I  A.,  p.  197;  B.,  p.  242.  '  A.,  p.  290;  B.,  346. 

3  Kant  attempts  to  explain  this  relation  through  the  use  he  makes  of  the  concept 
of  degree,  when  he  makes  degree  the  schema  of  quantity  and  defines  it  as  the  quantity 
of  intensity  in  sensation.  But  since  he  would  not  allow  of  intensitj-  being  defined  in 
empirical  terms,  the  schema  of  degree  is  a  purelj^  conceptual  matter,  and  the  relation 
concept  and  sense  is  still  untouched. 

*  A.,  p.  719;  B.,  p.  747.  »  A.,  p.  720;  B,,  p.  748. 

5  A.,  p.  720;  B.,  p.  748.  ^  A.,  p.  714;  B.,  p.  742. 


rant's   conception   of   quantity   as    a   constitutive   principle      21 

purely  quantitative  interpretation  of  quality  and  the  data  of  space  and 
time. 

If  construction  is  a  matter  of  quantity,  then  an  examination  of  the 
notion  of  quantity  is  required  before  we  can  proceed  further.  There 
must  be  some  interrelation  among  the  categories,  either  as  a  point  of 
development  or  of  mutual  purposiveness  with  respect  to  the  content  to 
which  they  are  supposed  to  apply.  This  interrelation  is  regarded  by 
Kant  as  elTected  through  the  relation  which  each  of  the  categories  bears 
to  time,"  and  as  a  mutual  relationshij)  through  time  it  would  seem  a 
matter  of  development.  This  development,  however,  does  not  refer  to 
the  concepts  as  themselves  forms,  since  a  development  of  mere  forms  in 
time  as  contentless  change  can  have  no  significance;  but  rather  to  the 
development  of  the  degree  of  adequacy  in  the  consciousness  of  the  object, 
as  that  consciousness  advances  from  the  homogeneous  in  perception  to 
generality  and  Regelmaessigkeit  in  the  object. 

For  Kant  there  seems  to  be  a  pure  form  of  quantity  as  such,'  yet 
"with  regard  to  quantity  (quantitas)  there  are  no  a.xioms  in  the  proper 
sense  of  the  word."^  That  is,  there  can  be  no  synthetic  general  propo- 
sitions with  regard  to  quantity  as  such,  but  only  with  regard  to  quantities 
(quanta).  It  is  clear,  however,  that  the  concept  of  quantity  is  being 
regarded  as  in  its  relation  to  time,  where  its  schema  is  given  as  number. 
As  number,  quantity  relates  to  the  internal  sense,  or  to  the  form  of  the 
consciousness  in  general,  and  is  quite  a  dilTerent  thing  from  quantity 
considered  in  its  relation  to  space.  Construction  in  quantity  with  refer- 
ence to  space  is  a  symbolical  representation  in  the  imagination  of 
geometrical  spaces,  and  as  symbolical,  may  be  given  "ostensive"  repre- 
sentation by  its  reduction  to  geometrical  notation.  It  seems  possible 
that  construction  of  quantitas  may  be  made  symbolically,  and  through 
the  symbols  used,  upon  their  interpretation,  transition  may  be  made 
to  construction  of  quanta,  where  axioms  may  be  formed  with  complete 
certainty.  This  symbolism  is  algebraic.  "In  mathematics  however, 
we  construct  not  only  quantities  {quanta)  as  in  geometry,  but  also  mere 
quantity  (quantitas)  as  in  algebra,  where  the  quality  of  the  object,  which 
has  to  be  thought  according  to  this  quantitative  concept,  is  entirely 
ignored."^ 

The  question  is  here,  however,  whether  this  symbolic  construction 
and  ostensive  construction  are  not  the  same  thing.  That  is,  apart 
from  the  two  notations,  and  considered  as  conscious  procedure  where 

■  \.,  p.  145;  B.,  p.  184.  J  .\.,  p.  163;  B.,  p.  204. 

'  A.,  p.  717;  B.,  p.  745.  *  A.,  p.  717;  B.,  p.  745. 


22  THE   CONSTITUTIVE   AND   REGULATIVE   PRINCIPLES   IN   KANT 

objects  are  involved,  are  not  the  geometrical  and  the  algebraic  methods 
the  same  ?  It  is  not  easy  to  see  the  difference  of  conscious  procedure 
in  these  two  cases,  although  in  the  one  case,  as  dealing  with  quanta, 
and  thus  having  direct  relations  to  objects  in  coexistence  or  succession 
in  time,  there  is  construction  of  the  actual  spatial  objects  of  geometry; 
whereas  in  the  other  case,  as  dealing  with  quantitas,  there  is  no  object 
involved  at  all,  since  quantity  as  such,  as  having  no  relation  to  time,  has 
no  connection  with  those  forms  which  provide  the  possibility  of  objects. 

Thus  it  appears  that  the  attempt  to  establish  the  notion  of  quantitas 
is  itself  sufficient  to  show  that  that  notion  has  no  significance  out  of 
relation  to  the  other  concepts;  and  when  thought  in  relation  to  the 
other  concepts,  that  of  quantitas  becomes  quanta.  It  thus  involves 
time  and  space,  and,  as  will  appear  later,  involves  also  quality  with  all  its 
"moments."  Quantity  as  a  pure  concept  does  not  contribute  much 
toward  the  explanation  of  the  consciousness  of  objects.  At  least  the 
"deduction"  is  not  generally  given  credit  for  having  accomplished  its 
purpose  of  showing  how  the  pure  forms,  as  subjective  conditions  of  the 
possibility  of  experience,  can  lead  to  the  object  in  the  concrete.  And 
the  "object  in  general"  must  have  a  stretched  interpretation  in  which 
its  generality  vanishes  before  it  can  conform  to  the  "objective"'  condi- 
tions of  the  object  in  the  concrete. 

Kant's  shift  from  quantitas  to  quanta  is  accomplished  by  the  abandon- 
ment of  the  pure  concept  for  its  schema,  so  that  when  the  concept  is 
regarded  as  having  direct  reference  to  the  real  it  appears  as  number." 
Here  is  involved  the  notion  of  quantity  as  the  synthesis  of  the  homo- 
geneous manifold,  which  presupposes,  first,  the  subjective  act  of  syn- 
thesis^ in  the  successive  addition  of  one  to  one;  and  second,  the 
determination  of  real  units  as  are  given  in  sensation.-'  Within  the 
conception  of  number  there  is  involved  the  understanding  with  its  pure 
thought  product  as  act,  and  the  sense  representation  as  matter  to  be 
determined.  "Number  therefore  is  nothing  but  the  unity  of  the  syn- 
thesis of  the  manifold  (repetition)  of  a  homogeneous  intuition  in  general, 
I  myself  producing  the  time  in  the  apprehension  of  the  intuition. "^ 

Number  must  then  be  considered  in  its  relations  to  time  and  space. 
In  its  relation  to  time  as  the  internal  sense,  it  is  the  act  of  comprehending 
the  manifold  of  intuition  under  the  law  of  their  succession.  It  is  not 
the  image,  in  this  sense,  of  a  collection  of  objects,  but  rather  represents 

■  A.,  p.  286;  B.,  p.  342.  *  A.,  p.  168;  B.,  p.  2og. 

'  A.,  p.  140;  B.,  p.  179.  s  A.,  p.  143;  B.,  p.  182. 

J  A.,  p.  129. 


K.-\NT  S   CONCEPTION'    OF    QUANTITY    AS   A    CONSTITUTIVE    PRINCIPLE      23 

the  act  by  which  a  plurality  of  objects  is  rej!;arded  as  a  collection.  "If, 
on  the  contrary,  I  think  of  a  number  in  general,  whether  it  be  five  or  a 
hundred,  this  thinkinj?  is  rather  the  representation  of  a  method  of 
representing^  in  one  image  a  certain  quantity  (for  instance  a  thousand) 
according  to  a  certain  concept,  than  the  image  itself,  which,  in  the  case 
of  a  thousand,  I  could  hardly  take  in  and  compare  with  the  concept."' 
Succession  belongs  to  the  phenomena  in  time,  but  not  to  the  law  accord- 
ing to  which  these  phenomena  succeed  one  another.  In  the  latter  sense 
phenomena  are  regarded  as  to  their  relations  in  space,  in  which  the  order 
of  succession  may  be  reversed,  and  the  phenomena  considered  as  coexist- 
ent. Bui  with  regard  to  time  itself  as  the  law  of  the  order  among 
phenomena,  it  is  the  permanent.  "Only  through  the  permanent  does 
existence  in  ditlerent  parts  of  a  series  of  time  assume  a  qiianlily  which  we 
call  duration.  For  in  mere  succession  (succession  as  the  rule  and  as 
abstracted  from  phenomena)  existence  always  comes  and  goes,  and 
never  assumes  the  slightest  quantity."^  The  time  form  here  regarded 
as  the  internal  sense,  and  as  operative  in  numbering,  is  an  aspect  of 
the  understanding,  in  that  it  serves  as  a  faculty  of  rules  to  set  limits 
among  what  may  assume  quantity.  But  for  this  active  capacity  there 
would  never  be  a  distinction  of  the  homogeneous,  since  if  there  could  be 
a  consciousness  at  all  it  would  be  one  entirely  without  change,  and  such  a 
"consciousness"  is  empirically  determined  to  be  unconsciousness.  So 
there  can  be  no  homogeneous  without  a  homogeneous  manifold,  and  no 
manifold  without  the  act  of  synthesis  determining  limits  within  the 
homogeneous. 

As  an  act  of  synthesis  it  is  difficult  to  distinguish  number  from  the 
time  form  itself.  As  the  "condition  of  the  possibility  of  all  synthetical 
unity  of  perceptions,"^  time  is  regarded  as  that  which  is  a  priori  in  the 
sensuous  experience.  And  if  we  identify  time  as  an  a  priori  intuition 
and  as  a  condition  of  experience,  with  the  understanding  as  a  lawgiver 
to  nature,^  we  have  as  it  seems  a  condition  of  the  identification  of  the 
unities  of  apprehension  and  of  apperception,  and  thus  the  possibility 
established  for  the  construction  of  objects  in  time  and  space,  the 
objects  which  constitute  the  corporeal  world.  This  would  also  establish 
all  principles  in  their  right  as  constitutive  principles,  and  decide  the 
ep^istemological  question  in  favor  of  construction. 

There  is,  however,  little  comfort  in  mere  possibilities.  The  possi- 
bility of  the  construction  of  nature  might  exist  in  the  mind  as  a  general 

'  A.,  p.  140;  B..  p.  179.  i  .\.,  p.  183;  B.,  p.  226. 

'A.,  p.  183;  B.,  p.  226.  <A.,  p.  125. 


24  THE   CONSTITUTIVE   AND  REGULATIVE   PRINCIPLES   IN   KANT 

rule  according  to  which  that  construction  must  proceed  if  there  is  to  be 
construction  at  all;  still  the  question  is  not  answered  as  to  whether 
there  is  to  be  such  construction.  We  may  have  to  heed  the  realistic 
assertion  that  nature  is  "  there"  prior  to  any  of  our  acts  of  construction, 
and  as  a  condition  through  evolution  of  the  existence  of  that  possibility. 
But  evolution  as  a  law  of  development  in  time  is  a  "predicable,"  or  a 
derived  concept  arising  out  of  the  consideration  of  quantity  in  its  rela- 
tion to  time.  Evolution  as  a  principle  by  no  means  provides  for  the 
reality  of  our  mental  constructions,  but  as  a  corollary  to  time  it  repre- 
sents a  particular  direction  in  which  our  syntheses  in  time  may  move 
in  distinguishing  the  law  of  succession  from  the  act  which  prescribes  the 
law  to  things  in  succession.  Actual  things  in  nature  are  not  involved, 
hence  evolution  as  a  principle  remains  a  category  whose  "schema"  is 
yet  to  be  discovered.  There  is,  however,  a  means  of  securing  reality 
for  the  constructions  of  our  internal  sense  under  the  category  of  quantity, 
and  this  consists  in  the  relation  of  quantity,  as  involving  the  internal 
time  sense,  to  the  space  form.'  But  before  leaving  time  quantity  we  have 
to  consider  it  as  extensive. 

It  simplifies  matters  much  if  we  state  at  the  beginning  that  by 
quantity  Kant  means  extensive  quantity.  His  statements  about 
extensive  quantity  therefore  give  us  our  idea  of  what  he  means  by 
quantity.  His  formal  definition,  however,  is  hardly  characteristic  of 
his  general  attitude  to  the  matter.  "I  call  an  extensive  quantity  that 
in  which  the  representation  of  the  whole  is  rendered  possible  by  the 
representation  of  its  parts,  and  therefore  necessarily  preceded  by  it."^ 
That  is,  every  synthesis  of  the  homogeneous  in  intuition,  considered  as 
represented  to  the  time  consciousness,  is  an  extensive  quantity;  but  it 
is  not  clear  that  the  character  of  extensiveness  distinguishes  that  syn- 
thesis from  any  other,  if  every  phenomenon  as  object  is  known  only  in  a 
synthesis.  And  the  possibility  of  an  object  is  just  what  makes  a  syn- 
thesis of  the  homogeneous  a  quantity.  There  would  be  no  consciousness 
at  all,  since  there  would  be  no  object,  in  a  homogeneous  given  as  com- 
pletely undifferentiated  or  unlimited,  because  there  would  be  here  no 
evidence  of  the  presence  of  the  activity  of  the  understanding;  but  if 
there  were  not  present  a  distinguishing  act,  the  homogeneous  would 
appear,  if  at  all,  as  the  mere  "given"  to  receptivity,  which  does  not 
constitute  a  consciousness.  This  kind  of  given  would  have  no  quantity ; 
there  would  be  no  object  and  hence  no  consciousness.  Quantity  appears 
here  as  the  condition  of  the  object,  and  as  such  condition,  is  also  a  con- 

'  A.,  p.  165;  B.,  p.  206.  ^  A.,  p.  162;  B.,  p.  203. 


kant's  conception  of  quantity  as  a  constitutive  principle    25 

dition  of  consciousness  itself."  But  phenomena  as  extensive  quantities, 
considered  as  syntheses  in  the  internal  time-intuition,  can  be  known  only 
in  the  bare  possibility,  that  is,  only  as  a  limitation  of  the  time  synthesis 
itself.  It  is  nothing  more  than  the  successive  pulse  and  pause  of  count- 
inoj  where  the  homoj^cncous  unities  are  quite  unqualified  or  unlimited, 
so  there  is  no  reality  for  this  synthesis.  Evolution  is  valid  as  a  princijile 
here,  if  we  are  considerint^  it  in  its  i^hilosophical  aspects,  but  not  in  its 
objective  or  scientific  application.  When  employed  in  the  latter  way, 
evolution  as  a  philosophical  principle  is  forgotten  entirely,  that  is,  as  a 
method  of  pure  synthesis  in  time,  it  cannot  be  used  as  an  organizing 
principle.  The  application  of  the  principle  in  science  involves  the  modi- 
fication of  the  time  synthesis  by  the  application  to  it  of  the  space- 
intuition.  But  of  the  pure  time  quantity,  since  it  is  itself  no  object  of 
perception,  "I  can  only  think  it  in  the  successive  progress  from  one 
moment  to  another,  thus  producing  in  the  end,  by  all  portions  of  time  and 
their  addition,  a  definite  quantity  of  time."^  But  a  definite  quantity  of 
time,  or  simj)ly  time  under  the  conception  of  quantity,  is  duration;  and 
duration  as  measured  time,  since  time  cannot  be  perceived,  can  be  known 
to  the  consciousness  only  through  appeal  to  outer  space  perception. 

Definite  quantity  of  itself  cannot  thus  in  any  of  its  aspects  give 
a.xioms,  since  as  defined,  its  apj^lication  is  restricted  to  particulars; 
and  while  propositions  resulting  from  it  are  self-evident  and  synthetical, 
they  are  not  general  as  is  required  of  a.xioms.  They  can  be  therefore  only 
numerical  formulas.  In  these  "the  synthesis  can  take  place  in  one 
way  only,  although  afterward  the  use  of  these  numbers  becomes  gen- 
eral."-' The  synthesis  of  two  numbers,  as  affected  in  the  one  way  only, 
results  in  the  synthetical  proposition.  But  when  the  characters  are 
used  as  symbols  merely,  when  their  use  becomes  general,  the  proposition 
formed  is  either  analytical  or  a  contentless  memory  symbol  for  an 
established  habit.  But  as  a  time  synthesis  the  proposition  is  singular 
only.  The  construction  in  imagination  is  defined  with  reference  to 
quantity,  but  the  construction  itself  determines  a  particular  quantity, 

'  B.,  p.  203:  "Now  the  consciousness  of  the  manifold  and  homogeneous  in  intui- 
tion, so  far  as  by  it  the  representation  of  an  object  is  first  rendered  p<issiblc.  is  the 
concept  of  quantity  (qiiaitlum).  Therefore  even  the  pcrccplion  as  a  phenomenon  is 
possible  only  through  the  same  s>'nthetical  unity  of  the  manifold  of  the  given  sensuous 
intuition,  by  which  the  unity  of  the  composition  of  the  manifold  and  homogeneous 
is  conceived  in  the  concept  of  quantity;  that  is.  phenomena  arc  always  ciuantilics.  and 
extensive  quantities;  because  as  intuitions  in  space  and  time,  they  must  be  represented 
through  the  time  synthesis  through  which  space  and  time  in  general  are  determined." 

'  A.,  p.  163;  B.,  p.  203.  i  A.,  p.  164;  B.,  p.  205. 


26  THE   CONSTITUTIVE   AND   REGULATIVE   PRINCIPLES   IN   KANT 

hence  the  statement  of  that  construction  cannot  be  an  axiom.  If  it 
could  be  generalized  in  construction  also,  and  not  merely  in  use,  the 
proposition  would  be  an  axiom  with  universal  application,  whereas  as 
particular,  it  is  only  a  numerical  formula.  As  generalized  in  construc- 
tion a  quantity  represents  the  "mere  function  of  productive  imagina- 
tion,"' and  its  statement  defines  the  conditions^  under  which  an  object 
is  possible  in  more  than  one  way  in  that  it  involves  space  as  well  as  time. 

Generalizing  quantitative  statements  involves  more  than  the  time- 
quantity  consciousness.  The  mere  function  of  productive  imagination, 
if  it  is  a  valid  consciousness  at  all,  must  square  with  the  empirical  con- 
sciousness in  other  matters  than  time,  if  it  becomes  possible  to  make 
pure  mathematics  in  their  full  precision  applicable  to  objects  of  experi- 
ence. The  successive  progress  from  moment  to  moment  has  a  condition, 
which,  as  already  remarked,  is  to  be  found  in  the  relation  of  quantity 
to  space.  It  is  true  that  if  the  object  can  be  defined  as  a  rule  of  synthesis 
of  the  understanding,  and  that  synthesis  could  be  identified  with  the 
time-quantity  consciousness,  then  mathematical  propositions,  even 
numerical  formulas,  would  be  in  their  full  precision  applicable  to  objects 
of  experience,  and  any  statement  of  quantity  would  be  an  a  priori 
synthetic  judgment.  But  it  must  be  remembered  that  the  object  is 
decidedly  too  complex  a  representation  to  allow  of  such  procedure. 
The  object  involves  not  only  time-quantity,  but  also  space-quantity; 
and  it  is  the  latter  which  renders  the  former  possible  to  representation. 
That  is,  space  is  the  schema  of  time,  just  as  time  succession  as  number 
is  the  schema  of  quantity. 

By  referring  to  space  and  time  as  schemata  I  mean  to  insist  on  their 
conceptual  character.  It  has  been  shown  that  the  concept  of  quantity 
taken  in  the  abstract  acquires  significance  only  when  regarded,  as  Kant 
insists,  as  a  synthesis  of  the  homogeneous.  But  the  very  idea  of  a 
synthesis,  as  also  that  of  homogeneous  unities,  implies  number  as  the 
form  in  which  the  synthesis  occurs.  And  number,  again,  involves  time 
as  the  form  under  which  a  plurality  of  unities  is  synthesized  in  the  inner 
sense.  But  a  synthesis  in  time  in  itself  gives  no  guarantee  of  the  reality 
of  the  process,  since  it  affords  no  generality  for  judgments  expressing 
that  synthesis,  which  are  merely  numerical  formulas.  It  thus  permits 
the  conceptual  representation  of  phenomena  in  their  succession  only. 
But  since  the  sensuous  representation  of  phenomena  provides  for  their 
synthesis  in  coexistence,  and  as  parts  external  to  each  other,  the  cate- 
gory of  quantity  must  be  further  schematized  through  the  representation 

'  A.,  p.  164;  B.,  p.  205.  =■  A.,  p.  142;  B.,  p.  182. 


KANT  S   CONCEPTION   OF   QUANTITY   AS   A   CONSTITUTIVE    PRINCIPLE      27 

of  space.  And  this  is  what  was  meant  when  it  was  said  that  space  is 
the  schema  of  the  time-schematized  category'  of  quantity.  Thus,  after 
all  Kant's  insistence  that  the  schema  is  not  the  image,  it  seems  that  the 
image  of  objects  in  space  is  necessarj'  to  the  application  of  the  category 
of  quantity. 

That  a  spatial  representation  is  necessary*  to  the  pure  time  deter- 
mination is  cviilenced  in  many  of  Kant's  statements.  "And  exactly 
because  this  internal  intuition  supplies  no  shape,  we  try  to  make  good 
this  deficiency  by  means  of  analogies,  and  represent  to  ourselves  the 
succession  of  time  by  a  line  progressing  to  infinity,  in  which  the  manifold 
constitutes  a  series  of  one  dimension  only;  and  we  conclude  from  the 
properties  of  this  line  to  all  the  properties  of  time,  with  one  exception, 
i.e.,  the  parts  of  the  former  are  simultaneous,  those  of  the  latter  succes- 
sive."' But  since  succession  is  the  essential  property  of  time,  such  a 
representation  in  a  synthesis  whose  parts  are  simultaneous  does  not 
make  an  analogy  likely  to  be  helpful.  The  analogy  still  leaves  the 
distinctive  character  of  space  and  time  incommensurable,  unless  these 
characters  can  tmd  a  common  ground  in  a  deeper  unity.  This  deeper 
unity  is  found  in  the  permanent;  for,  "without  something  permanent 
therefore  no  relation  of  time  is  possible."^  This  assures  to  existence  a 
quantity  because  of  which  it  does  not  "come  and  go."  But  existence 
which  does  not  come  and  go  and  which  therefore  has  a  quantity,  has  a 
character  which  makes  it  determinable  (in  thought  at  least)  independent 
of  time,  and  which  forms  the  ground  of  time  itself  (as  succession).  This 
character  is  the  synthesis  of  the  object  in  space.  "Though  both  are 
phenomena,  yet  the  phenomena  of  the  external  sense  have  something 
permanent,  which  suggests  a  substratum  of  varying  determinations,  and 
consequently  a  sjTithetical  concept,  namely,  space;  while  time,  the  only 
form  of  our  internal  intuition,  has  nothing  permanent,  and  makes  us  to 
know  the  change  of  determinations  only,  but  not  for  the  determinable 
object."^  Thus  in  so  far  as  time  quantity  is  concerned  our  constructions 
are  of  our  own  internal  consciousness,  and  might  very  well  go  on  inde- 
pendent of  any  reference  beyond  that  consciousness.  Such  a  con- 
struction, however,  would  be  entirely  without  basis,  since  a  remembered 
point  in  the  process  could  not  occur  as  an  element  in  a  new  construction, 
because  such  a  reference  backward  would  give  the  memory  product  a 
place.  That  is,  elements  would  be  conceived  as  coexistent  and  simul- 
taneous, and  simultaneity  is  meaningless  except  as  objects  are  conceived 

'  A.,  p.  a,  B.,  p.  50.  i  A.,  p.  381. 

•  .\.,  p.  183;  B.,  p.  22b. 


28  THE   CONSTITUTIVE   AND   REGULATIVE   PBINCIPLES   IN   KANT 

as  external  to  each  other.  That  is,  two  pulses  of  time  which  are  felt  as 
two,  though  conceived  as  simultaneous,  are  equivalent  to  two  objects 
occupying  different  places;  and  when  the  pulsation  is  labelled  two,  that 
is,  when  there  is  a  distinction,  there  is  the  appearance  of  "  transcendental 
reflection"  which  assigns  a  "place"  in  time. 

The  sum  of  all  these  considerations  is  that  when  mere  enumeration 
is  further  distinguished,  the  consciousness  involved  is  more  than  that 
of  time-quantity;  or,  when  there  is  a  limitation  imposed  on  the  time 
process,  this  limitation  becomes  a  rule  of  synthesis  and  implies  an  object 
in  space.  Hence  the  conception  of  the  permanent  in  time  implies  space; 
and  even  though  this  permanent  may  be  defined  in  subjective  terms  as 
the  rule  of  the  synthesis  of  the  homogeneous,  it  is  as  such  even  the  limi- 
tation to  the  time  flow,  and  what  limits  the  time  flow  cannot  be  itself 
unless  it  is  to  be  identified  with  the  whole  of  consciousness  as  will. 
What  limits  time  must  be  what  is  itself  not  mere  time,  but  the  result 
of  a  characterization  within  consciousness  other  than  mere  succession. 
"  For  the  purpose  of  presenting  to  the  conception  of  substance  something 
permanent  in  intuition  corresponding  thereto,  and  thus  of  demonstrating 
the  objective  reality  of  this  conception,  we  require  an  intuition  (of  matter) 
in  space,  because  space  alone  is  permanent,  and  determines  things  as 
such,  while  time,  and  with  it  all  that  is  in  the  internal  sense,  is  in  a  state 
of  continual  flow."' 

That  a  spatial  determination  is  necessary  to  the  representation  of 
time  quantity  is  shown  in  the  many  instances  in  which  Kant  constructs 
the  line  in  imagination.  "We  cannot  represent  time,  which  is  not  an 
object  of  external  intuition,  in  any  other  way  than  under  the  image 
of  a  line,  which  we  draw  in  thought,  a  mode  of  representation  without 
which  we  could  not  cognize  the  unity  of  its  dimension,  and  also  we  are 
necessitated  to  take  our  determinations  of  periods  of  time,  or  of  points 
of  time,  for  all  our  internal  perceptions  from  the  changes  which  we 
perceive  in  outward  things.  It  follows  that  we  must  arrange  the  deter- 
minations of  the  internal  sense,  as  phenomena  in  time,  exactly  in  the 
same  manner  as  we  arrange  those  of  the  external  senses  in  space.  "^  And 
that  this  mode  of  representation  is  necessary,  in  Kant's  view,  for  the 
idea  of  quantity  in  all  of  its  aspects  is  seen  from  this  statement:  "It 
can  easily  be  shown  that  the  possibility  of  things  as  quantities,  and, 
therefore,  the  objective  reality  of  the  category  of  quantity,  can  be 
represented  only  in  the  external  intuition,  and  only  through  its  medium 
be  applied  to  the  inner  sense  also."^ 

'B.,  p.  391.  'B.,  p.  156.  3B.,  p.  293. 


CHAPTER  IV 
INTENSIVE  QUANTITY  AS  A  CONSTITUTIVE  PRINCIPLE 

In  so  far  as  (|uantity  is  regarded  as  the  abstract  synthesis  of  the 
homogeneous  manifold,  it  may  be  said  that  there  is  a  consciousness  which 
can  be  regarded  as  quantity  as  such.  In  this  case  it  is  the  idea  of  a 
unity  within  an  unditTerentiated  mass  of  representations  which  may  be 
either  of  the  internal  or  of  the  external  sense.  No  character  of  the 
representations  is  involved  in  the  unity  except  the  formal  one  of  their 
fitness  to  be  conceived  as  elements  of  the  same  consciousness.  But 
this  formal  character  is  a  "pure"  construction,  since  it  represents  only 
the  mode  of  activity  in  which  the  representations  are  received  together. 
There  can  be  no  question  that  there  is  construction  here,  since  nothing 
else  is  intended  by  the  act  which  receives  representations;  but  the 
question  which  must  arise  is,  Just  where  does  the  object  get  determina- 
tion ?  If  the  object  is  defined  as  the  rule  of  the  synthesis,  there  is  no 
ditlkulty  in  understanding  its  construction  by  the  mind;  and,  further 
the  object  has  universal  validity  for  the  human  mind,  since  the  object 
is  nothing  else  than  that  constitution  which  makes  a  mind  a  mind. 

So  long  as  quantity  is  the  object  of  our  constructions  the  question 
of  the  relations  of  the  forms  of  sense  to  the  forms  of  the  understanding 
stands  open,  and  our  epistemology  is  representational.  The  object 
cannot  be  formed  out  of  material  defined  by  limitation  from  the  object. 
Nor  can  any  synthesis  of  abstractions  represent  the  object  of  experience, 
much  less  construct  it.  Quantity  must  itself  have  a  quantity  or  be  a 
quantum;  that  is,  it  must  be  definitely  limited,  and  this  limitation,  for 
experience,  gives  it  a  quality.  Quantities  arc,  for  the  understanding, 
homogeneous,  and  the  character  of  the  knowledge  involved  is  not 
affected  by  the  diflercnce  of  the  quanta  considered ;  that  is,  the  knowledge 
value  of  quanta  by  its  incorporation  in  the  body  of  knowledge  extends 
that  body  in  one  direction  only.  Hut  this  body  of  knowledge  thus 
extended  is  not  more  inclusive  of  the  real  in  experience  than  before  its 
extension. 

So  far  we  have  considered  quantity  as  extensive  merely,  and  this  is 
the  meaning  employed  by  Kant  when  he  defines  quantity  as  the  .syn- 
thesis of  the  homogeneous.  It  is  a  formal  princij^le,  and  pertains  only 
to  such  determinations  of  the  object  of  experience  as  may  be  considered 

^9 


30  THE  <^NSTITUTIVE   AND   EEGULATI\TS   PRINCIPLES   IN   ILA.NT 

external.  As  such  it  fulfils  the  requirements  of  a  constitutive  principle 
when  constitution  is  subject  to  the  limits  imposed  by  the  idea  of  possible 
experience.  But  the  formulation  of  a  priori  possibilities,  while  it  may 
construct  the  object  of  experience  in  one  more  or  less  unimportant 
aspect,  still  leaves  that  object  unrecognizable  as  a  concrete  event  in 
the  experience  of  ordinary  life.  The  concept  which  represents  the  law 
of  the  construction  of  objects  of  experience  must  include  more  than  the 
mechanical  aggregation  of  the  characters  most  remote  from  what  is  con- 
crete in  experience;  and  to  do  so,  must  consider  not  only  the  abstractly 
homogeneous  manifold  as  extensive  quantity,  but  must  ask  what  it  is 
in  the  manifold  that  makes  a  manifold  of  the  homogeneous,  or  that 
transforms  the  homogeneous  from  a  congealed  and  dead  substratum  into 
a  living  manifold  of  interacting  individuals.  If  quantity  is  to  be  made 
the  principle  whereby  objects  of  experience  are  to  be  constructed,  it 
must  become  limited  quantity,  or  quantity  having  some  definite  con- 
nection with  the  real  in  experience.  This  connection  is  made,  for  Kant 
through  the  only  character  of  the  real  that  is  known  a  priori,^  viz., 
intensive  quantity  or  degree.  We  here  are  dealing  with  a  conception 
much  more  promising  than  that  of  extensive  quantity,  since  in  speaking 
of  degree  Kant  has  reference  to  the  significance  of  the  real  in  experience, 
and  not  merely  to  the  subjective  mode  of  the  mind  as  receptive.  And 
while  this  second  of  the  mathematical  principles  is  defined  abstractly, 
as  if  to  confine  it  to  the  subjective  realm  where  only  possibilities  are  to 
be  considered,  yet  the  principle  gets  a  concrete  significance  in  the  applica- 
tion that  is  made  of  it. 

Extensive  quantity  is  called  a  constitutive  principle  because  through 
it  the  mind  marks  out  a  priori  certain  characters  of  the  real,  if,  in  the 
particular  direction  in  which  the  mind  is  working  at  a  given  time,  there 
is  to  be  any  real.  It  thus  sets  the  limits  under  which  an  experience  of 
the  real  is  possible.  But  these  limits  may  be  determined,  and  corre- 
sponding characters  of  the  real  may  be  suggested,  without  there  ever 
being  an  instance  of  reality  present.^ 

In  the  same  way  intensive  quantity,  or  the  degree  of  the  real  in 
experience,  has  an  a  priori  formulation  in  terms  of  the  possibility  of 
experience,  and  this  formulation  may  be  conceived  as  a  law  in  advance 
of  the  experience  of  the  reality  to  which  the  law  applies,  and  in  which  it 
as  a  law  is  discovered.  That  is,  degree  may  occupy  consciousness  as  a 
law  even  while  there  is  no  reality  present  which  has  a  degree.  As  such, 
it  is  the  "principle  which  anticipates  all  perceptions  as  such."^    It  is 

'  A.,  p.  176;  B.,  p.  218.  ^  A.,  p.  199;  B.,  p.  244.  3  A.,  p.  166. 


INTENSIVE    QUANTITY    AS   A   CONSTITUTIVE    PRINCIPLE  3 1 

here  to  be  asked  in  what  sense  the  real  as  the  matter  of  sensation  can 
be  represented  in  the  mind  independent  of  and  in  advance  of  its  par- 
ticular occurrences.  The  question  is  not  asked  from  the  point  of  view 
of  genetic  psychology.  Xor  is  it,  for  Kant,  asking  whether  a  sensation 
can  be  felt  when  there  is  no  sensation;  but  it  is  rather,  in  his  mind,  a 
consideration  of  whether  sensation  has  any  characters,  conceptual  or 
other,  which  may  have  a  knowledge  significance  in  the  absence  of  the 
feeling  through  which  the  sensation  is  known.  If  there  be  such  char- 
acters, then  it  can  be  said  that  if  there  is  to  be  sensation,  or  whenever 
there  is  sensation,  it  will  conform  to  certain  conditions  as  laws.  If  there 
are  these  laws  and  they  can  be  discovered,  then  sensation  as  a  conscious- 
ness can  be  regarded,  in  so  far  at  least,  as  of  the  same  nature  as  the  con- 
ceptual elements  of  mind.  Kant  insists  that  there  is  to  be  found  an  a 
priori  character  of  sensation."  This  character  which  is  known  a  priori 
in  sensation  is  expressed  in  the  mathematical  princii)le  that  the  real  in 
sensation  has  a  degree. 

It  is  no  part  of  the  present  purpose  to  show  the  various  relations 
which  the  concept  of  quality  has  to  the  other  categories  in  the  system 
of  Kant.  That  all  the  categories  are  bound  together  through  their 
common  schema  time,  has  already  been  shown  (chap.  iii).  Nor  is  it 
the  purpose  to  show  that  the  three  conceptions,  reality,  negation, 
limitation,  are  necessary  to  the  understanding  of  the  reality  which  is 
present  in  sensation.  In  fact,  the  consideration  of  these  forms  is  likely 
to  lead  to  a  conceptualization  of  sensation,  and  to  neglect  of  the  concrete 
real  events  in  which  sensation  is  experienced.  Apart  from  this  abstract 
scheme  we  may  attempt  to  lind  from  Kant's  statements  what  he  means 
by  the  intensive  quality  of  reality,  or  its  degree  as  experienced  in  sensa- 
tion. Such  a  statement  is  found  in  the  Anticipations  of  Perception 
(ist  ed.).  In  this  statement  sensation  involves  "a  continuous  con- 
nection between  reality  in  phenomena  and  negation";  and  "fills  no 
more  than  one  moment'';  and  in  a  later  statement,"  "phenomena 
as  objects  of  perception,  contain  the  real  of  sensation,  as  a  representa- 
tion merely  subjective,  which  gives  us  merely  the  consciousness  that 

the    subject   is   affected "      In    this   description   of   quality  as 

schematized  by  degree  there  are  three  points  to  which  I  shall  give 
attention.  First,  there  is  the  notion  of  degree  as  a  conceptual  mean 
in  the  series  limited  by  zero  and  infinity.  Second,  there  is  the  notion 
of  the  consciousness  of  a  degree  of  reality  as  re{)resented  in  a  single 
moment.     And  third,  the  notion  of  degree  as  represented  in  sensation 

'  A.,  p.  167;  B.,  p.  20Q.  '  B.,  p.  :o7. 


32  THE   CONSTITUTIVE   AND  REGULATIVE   PRINCIPLES   IN   KANT 

considered  as  a  subjective  fact.  I  take  up  these  points  in  the  order 
named. 

Degree  has  reference  to  the  consciousness  of  reality  as  occupying  a 
mean  position  between  zero  and  the  absolute  reality  as  the  other  limit 
to  the  series.  If  we  put  it  in  spatial  terms  the  zero  position  is  empty 
space  and  the  opposite  limit  is  the  absolutely  filled  space.  But  the 
former  can  never  be  known,  since  the  absence  of  reality  in  an  intuition  is 
the  absence  of  the  means  by  which  that  intuition  becomes  a  conscious- 
ness. And  since  to  become  known  there  must  be  a  degree  greater  than 
zero,  it  follows  "that  no  perception,  and  therefore  no  experience,  is 
possible,  that  could  prove,  directly  or  indirectly,  by  any  roundabout 
syllogisms,  a  complete  absence  of  all  reality  in  a  phenomenon."'  It  is 
clear  also  that  there  is  no  consciousness  of  the  absolute  reality,  except 
as  an  ideal  of  feeling,  or  as  a  pure  construction  of  the  intellect  which 
can  never  become  objectified  as  knowledge.  Since  knowledge  disappears 
at  either  limit  of  the  series,  and  since  in  this  case  nothing  but  abstractions 
remain,  we  are  as  far  as  possible  from  the  real  of  actual  felt  sensation 
where  intensive  quantity  is  supposed  to  apply.  As  a  relation  between 
terms  of  a  series  of  possible  sensations,  degree,  as  representing  the  rule 
of  synthesis  of  the  homogeneous,  has  a  significance  which  can  be  esti- 
mated.    Degree  in  this  sense  represents  a  unity.^ 

If  degree  must  be  regarded  as  a  rule  of  synthesis  there  is  difficulty 
in  understanding  how  we  can  claim  objective  validity  for  our  judgments 
of  the  intensity  of  phenomena.  Defining  the  object  as  a  rule  of  syn- 
thesis gives  us  no  doubt  the  object  as  phenomenon,  or  as  the  result  of 
our  construction  upon  the  basis  of  perception,  but  this  does  not  show 
how  the  object  may  be  given  us  in  perception,  which  it  is  the  business 
of  intensive  quantity  to  do.  The  rule  of  synthesis  is  not  found  in  the 
phenomena  but  in  the  result  of  our  conceptual  activity  upon  sense  data. 
And  it  is  just  the  purpose  in  the  appeal  to  degree  to  show  that  our  a 
priori  rule  is  identical  with  a  character  of  phenomena  as  they  stand  in 
series.  It  is  here  that  the  subjective  consciousness  is  represented  as 
standing  to  the  phenomena  "in  nature"  as  cause  to  effect,  when  we 
must  look  at  the  intensities  of  phenomena  as  present  in  space  and  time  as 
being  the  result  of  a  "synthesis  of  the  production  of  the  quantity  of  a 
sensation  from  its  commencement — that  is,  from  the  pure  intuition  =  o 
onwards,  up  to  a  certain  quantity  of  sensation."^  It  is  the  rule  of  syn- 
thesis as  active  which  gives  our  acquaintance  with  phenomena,  and  as 

'  A.,  p.  172;  B.,  p.  214.  2  B.,  p.  208. 

*  A.,  p.  168;  B.,  p.  210. 


INTENSIVE    QUANTITY    AS    A    CONSTITUTIVE    PRINCIPLE  33 

we  can  look  upon  that  rule  as  quantitative  (intensively  and  without 
regard  to  the  aggregate  in  space  and  time),  our  experience  of  phenomena 
may  through  their  difference  in  degree  be  subjected  to  the  mathematical 
statement."  In  fact  it  is  the  conception  of  an  intensity  of  a  phenomenon 
which  renders  a  i)henomenon  possible  to  consciousness  as  a  synthesis 
in  coalition;  while  it  is  a  break  in  the  synthesis,  or  a  "repetition  of  a 
synthesis  (beginning  and)  ending  at  every  moment"  which  gives  us 
the  consciousness  of  an  aggregate  of  many  phenomena.''  Thus  intensive 
quantity  gives  us  a  "much,"  while  extensive  quantity  gives  a  "many." 

Intensive  quantity  as  a  rule  of  synthesis  within  phenomena  regarded 
as  arranged  serially,  involves  causation,  which,  as  we  shall  see  in  the 
following  chapter,  is  not  a  mathematical,  and  therefore  not  a  consti- 
tutive principle.  In  neither  case  is  the  immediate  real  of  sensation 
represented  in  consciousness  directly,  but  only  through  a  conceptualized 
symbolism,  which  is  clearly  representational. 

As  a  "moment,"  sensation  is  not  a  synthesis  of  parts  and  is  without 
extensive  quantity.  It  is  not  quite  clear  in  what  sense  the  "moment" 
is  to  be  taken,  since,  if  it  is  to  be  used  in  the  sense  of  a  temporal  limit, 
then  the  consciousness  of  degree  cannot  be  a  synthesis;  and  if  taken  not 
in  a  temporal  sense  but  as  a  synthesis,  then  degree  becomes  extensive 
quantity.  I  pass  for  the  present  the  rigid  either-or  which  represents 
intensive  quantity  and  extensive  quantity  as  entirely  unrelated.  I  con- 
sider here  the  moment  of  sensation  in  its  relation  to  both. 

The  moment  of  sensation  would  seem  to  be  the  consciousness  of  a 
term  of  a  series  out  of  relation  to  other  terms,  a  cross-section,  as  it  were, 
of  a  series  at  a  given  point.  Besides  the  objection  that  such  a  view 
is  imi)ossible  because  terms  vanish  when  taken  apart  from  their  relations, 
there  is  the  further  one  that  no  synthesis  (and  for  Kant  therefore  no 
consciousness)  is  possible,  since  the  point  of  cross-section  is  a  limit, 
which  can  never  be  compounded  into  time.^  The  moment  could  not 
therefore  be  a  continuous  quantity,  since  it  could  have  no  relation  to 
time. 

The  moment  as  extensive  quantity  would  represent  a  synthesis  in 
space  and  time,  and  as  such  is  open  to  all  the  objections  which  have  been 
raised  to  extensive  quantity,  the  most  conclusive  of  which  is  that  quantity 
as  extensive,  although  it  determines  the  object  as  external,  does  so  with 
such  a  vengeance  that  the  object  is  not  directly  related  to  consciousness, 
and  that  relation  can  only  be  representational.     It  is  therefore  clear  that 

'  A.,  p.  178;  B.,  p.  2:1.  J  .\.,  p.  170;  J}.,  p.  211. 

'  .\.,  p.  170;  li.,  p.  211. 


34  THE   CONSTETUTIVE   AND  KEGULATIVE   PRINCIPLES   IN   KANT 

in  sensation  intensive  quantity  cannot  be  separated  from  extensive 
quantity,  without  losing,  in  the  one  case,  all  matter  of  sensation  and  with 
it  all  reality;  and  in  the  other,  without  losing  the  formal  or  space-and- 
time  character  of  sense,  and  with  it  the  conscious  determination  of  the 
object.  If  the  matter  of  sense  is  neglected,  and  the  synthesis  directed 
to  the  forms  of  space  and  time,  we  have  the  object  as  mere  extensive 
quantity.  If  the  synthesis  is  directed  to  the  matter  of  sense  to  the 
neglect  of  the  form,  then  the  object  is  the  immediate  of  intensive 
quantity.  In  this  case  the  question  of  the  relation  of  consciousness 
to  its  object  could  not  arise.  But  the  fact  that  it  does  arise  is  suf- 
ficient evidence  that  intensive  quantity  and  extensive  quantity  cannot 
be  separated. 

It  is  hardly  worth  while  here  to  discuss  sensation  as  a  subjective 
fact,  since  a  merely  subjective  fact  offers  little  help  in  the  search  for  an 
object  which  is  not  a  purely  formal  one.  Still,  the  purely  subjective 
elements  lead,  for  Kant,  to  the  determination  of  the  object  in  that  they 
point  to  its  synthesis  by  conforming  to  a  rule.  But  given  a  number  of 
intensities  in  which  a  rule  is  at  work  and  there  is  a  synthesis  in  time 
and  space.  This  would  not,  therefore,  correspond  to  the  moment  of 
sensation,  but  would  be  an  extensive  quantity. 

Thus  the  notion  of  intensive  quantity  as  subjective  fact  is  found  to 
be  meaningless  except  as  it  involves  the  synthesis  in  time  and  space 
and  therefore  extensive  quantity.  Intensive  quantity  and  extensive 
quantity,  or  quality  and  quantity,  cannot  be  separated  in  the  investiga- 
tion which  is  to  result  in  the  description  of  that  consciousness  which 
accomplishes  the  determination  of  the  object.  Quality,  as  schematized 
by  degree  and  represented  as  the  law  operative  between  infinite  limits, 
implies  causation.  Quality  with  no  limits  imposed  upon  it  cannot  thus 
be  a  constitutive  principle ;  in  this  case  the  principle  constitutes  too  much. 
As  the  moment  of  sensation,  quality  constructs  a  non-quantitative 
world,  or  a  world  of  unlimited  manifoldness.  It  is  the  world  of  the 
many,  where  there  is  no  hint  of  law  or  rule.  It  thus  shows  the  necessity 
of  the  conception  of  a  community  of  the  real  and  of  the  interrelatedness 
of  all  experience.  As  subjective,  quality  neglects  that  aspect  of 
experience  which  suggests  to  us  the  necessity  of  the  quantitative  or 
mathematical  formulation  of  experience  which  constitutes  our  world  of 
science  as  such. 


CHAPTER  V 
THE  REGULATIVE  PRINCIPLES 

It  has  appeared  that  the  concept  of  quantity  as  a  synthesis  of  the 
homogeneous  manifold  has  no  objective  significance  except  as  it  involves 
substance  as  the  permanent  real.  And  this  sul)stance  has  been  shown 
to  require  an  interpretation  in  terms  of  the  real  in  perceptual  space. 
As  such  it  is  the  ground  of  causality,  and  carries  us  at  once  out  of  the 
sphere  of  constitutive  principles,  if  constitutive  principles  must  be 
mathematical,  into  the  sphere  where  principles  are  "merely"  regulative. 
Ill  the  same  way,  intensive  quantity,  or  quality,  in  that  it  gives  us  only 
the  conception  of  a  multitude  among  which  different  grades  or  degrees 
of  the  real  may  be  distinguished,  suggests  the  question  of  the  principle 
up)on  which  the  object  may  be  constructed  within  the  qualitatively 
differentiated  manifold.  This  principle,  when  found,  must  show  its 
applicability  through  its  capacity  to  combine  these  different  degrees,  if 
degree  is  to  become  intelligible.  For,  degree  implies  difference;  there 
could  be  no  meaning  for  the  notion  of  degree  as  applied  to  a  homo- 
geneous. Hence,  before  there  can  be  degrees  there  must  be  a  relation 
established  among  the  homogeneous,  which  recognizes  or  establishes 
differences.  A  degree  is  quantity  of  dijerence.  Now  this  principle,  if 
we  are  to  appeal  always  to  the  possibility  of  experience,  is  that  upon 
which  we  depend  when  we  assert  that  a  particular  experience  is  possible, 
namely,  causation.  When  we  take  the  concept  of  the  possibility  of 
experience  in  its  ordinary  experiential  sense,  that  is,  as  applying  merely 
to  the  matter  in  hand,  as,  e.g.,  a  particular  problem  in  science,  we  say 
that  a  given  experience  is  possible  because  observed  relations  demand 
that  that  experience  be  realized  when  the  given  conditions  are  fulfilled. 
It  is  possibility  which  is  predictable  upon  analogical  construction  and 
is  a  possibility  only  in  the  sense  that  the  given  conditions  are  not  yet 
fulfilled.  When  the  conditions  are  fulfilled,  the  possibility  has  passed, 
and  its  place  is  taken  by  "  fact." 

But  the  possibility  of  experience  may  be  expressed  in  terms  of  the 
sum  of  the  conditions  without  reference  to  the  result  which  is  to  follow 
upon  their  fulfilment.  In  this  case  the  conditions  represent  factual 
events  of  the  present,  and  we  say  that  we  see  the  jirinciple  involved  in 
the  present  situation.     Or  the  conditions  may  be  conceived  merely,  so 

35 


36  THE   CONSTITUTIVE   AND   REGULATIVE   PRINCIPLES   IN   KANT 

that  we  can  say  that  whenever  such  and  such  conditions  are  present, 
then  such  or  such  an  event  will  follow.  We  are  here  thinking  of  results 
in  terms  of  causation,  and  are  uniting  a  cause  with  its  effect.  But  we 
may  regard  a  set  of  conceived  conditions  in  the  point  of  the  relations 
which  determine  their  capacity  to  issue  in  a  given  event.  Here  we  have 
universalized  a  situation  and  we  express  its  causal  capacity  in  a  state- 
ment which  we  call  a  principle. 

A  serious  mistake  is  easily  made  here,  however,  and  it  can  be  shown, 
I  think,  that  Kant  falls  into  error  on  this  point.  When  we  have  the 
conceived  complex  of  conditions  expressed  in  the  form  of  a  principle,  we 
say  that  our  principle  brings  about  or  produces  a  given  result.  It  is  as 
if  we  said  that  first  here  is  our  principle  as  an  active  agent  ready  to  spring 
forth  at  our  call  and  present  us  with  a  brand  new  event,  so  that  after 
the  event  has  taken  place  we  can  count  two  existences,  whereas  before 
there  was  but  one.  But,  instead,  what  we  really  have  is  a  set  of  condi- 
tions which,  upon  our  change  of  purpose  or  point  of  view,  is  an  event 
which  we  consider  a  result.  What  is  produced  is  our  new  purpose,  and 
there  has  been  no  addition  to  "nature,"  no  new  "event"  has  occurred. 
Nature  has  no  results;  an  event  in  nature  follows  another  event,  and  if 
it  does  so  uniformly  with  respect  to  our  interests  or  purposes,  we  desig- 
nate it  a  result,  but  then  only  in  relation  to  the  preceding  event.  The 
only  change  in  the  situation  is  that  what  we  formerly  knew  as  a  complex 
of  conditions,  we  have  synthesized  into  a  unified  principle  expressing 
our  purpose,  and  now  know  the  same  as  an  event  we  call  a  result. 

A  sequence  implies  an  extended  time  or  a  lapse  of  time;  so  that 
events  described  under  that  notion  are  conceived  as  disparate,  as  having 
individual  "places"  in  time.  Under  the  notion  of  sequence  we  are 
thinking  of  the  progress  of  the  lapse  or  the  passing  of  a  given  duration, 
and  its  extensity  is  its  only  character  for  us.  But  when  I  speak  of  uni- 
formity of  sequence,  I  have  turned  from  the  consideration  of  a  quality 
of  time  itself  to  that  of  the  nature  which  objects  must  have  in  order  to 
become  terms  in  a  sequence,  that  is,  to  the  qualities  of  objects  which 
make  them  sequents.  So  the  uniformity  of  sequence  is  independent 
of  time,  is  rather  a  character  of  objects,  and  is  singular  or  unitary  and 
not  numerically  quantitative.  There  is  no  "production,"  since  there 
is  no  objective  justification  for  duality  of  cause  and  effect  or  activity 
and  result.  There  is  only  a  situation  conceived  as  a  whole,  a  "  concept, " 
which,  as  generalized,  is  a  principle. 

Kant's  mistake  here  is  in  abandoning  the  "causality  of  the  cause" 
as  uniformity  of  sequence  for  the  ancient  superstition  of  the  efficient 


THE   REGULATIVE   PRINCIPLES  37 

cause.  But  what  we  are  concerned  in  here  is  to  point  out  that  uni- 
formity of  sequence  when  properly  understood  is  the  unitary  j^round 
which,  for  Kant,  connects  causaHty  through  substance  with  cjuantity, 
or  that  gives  a  causal  significance  to  the  synthesis  of  the  homogeneous 
when  considered  in  extensity.  Thus  substance  is  a  conceived  ground 
for  causaUty,  and  its  idea  would  never  arise  if  the  necessity  of  causality 
were  never  questioned.  It  means  nothing  more  than  the  unity  or 
uniformity  of  the  causal  relation. 

Causality  is,  then,  the  basic  principle  in  the  doctrine  of  quantity. 
While  quantity  as  such,  or  e.xtensive  quantity,  is  under  consideration,  the 
consciousness  involved  is  that  of  the  synthesis  in  time.  The  operation 
of  the  synthesis  is  therefore  serial  and  linear,  or  of  only  one  dimen- 
sion. It  is  in  this  case  that  a  purely  temporal  or  arithmetical  mathe- 
matics applies  with  its  synthetic  numerical  formulas.  But  in  this 
synthesis  we  are  only  computing  or  calculating  experience.  Our  progress 
is  rapid  and  satisfactory  so  long  as  we  are  dealing  with  constants  in 
direction,  so  long  as  our  serial  advance  does  not  turn  upon  itself  or  is 
not  opposed  by  series  of  ditTerent  directions.  But  experience  is  a  field 
and  not  a  line.'  To  carry  out  the  figure,  let  two  quantitative  experien- 
tial series  intersect.  At  their  point  of  intersection  there  is  an  event 
which  has  a  place  in  both  series,  and  its  numerically  computed  place 
is  or  may  be  dilTerent  in  each.  At  the  same  time  this  event  has  two 
determinations,  or  two  events  occupy  the  same  time  or,  one  event 
occupies  two  simultaneous  "times."  Now  we  have  seen  that  simul- 
taneity or  coexistence  in  time  is  equivalent  to  coexistence  in  space; 
or  that  the  conij^lete  consciousness  of  two  objects  in  one  time  involves 
the  spatial  determination  of  those  objects.  When  the  object  or  the 
real  is  determined  in  the  time  series,  the  quantitative  direction  of  the 
synthesis  is  no  longer  significant,  since  it  must  share  its  determining 
capacity  with  a  complex  of  directions.  Quantity  is  only  one  of  the 
determinants  of  objects.  In  other  words,  an  event  determined  as  other 
than  a  point  of  time  becomes  a  nucleus  of  a  myriad  of  relations.  And 
since  direction,  or  the  temporal  flow,  does  not  comprise  the  whole 
significance,  the  purport  of  an  event  may  be  considered  as  extending 

■  Kant's  Dissertation,  sec.  14,  note:  "Though  time  is  of  one  dimension,  yet  the 
ubiquity  of  time  (if  I  may  use  an  expression  of  Newton's),  by  which  all  things  sensible 
are  somcuherr.  adds  to  the  quantity  of  real  things  another  dimension,  in  so  far  as  they, 
as  it  were,  hang  up<jn  one  moment  of  time.  For  if  you  picture  time  as  a  line  in  infini- 
tum, and  coe.\istents  by  lines  applied  at  right  angles  in  any  point  of  time,  the  super- 
ficies which  is  thus  generated  will  represent  the  .\fundus  Phaenomenon  both  in  its 
substance  and  its  accidents"  (Caird's  trans.;. 


38  THE   CONSTITUTIVE   AND  REGULATIVE   PRINCIPLES   IN   KANT 

to  this  or  that  other  term.  That  is,  the  "productive "  influence  of  events 
in  experience  is  mutual,  they  mutually  produce  and  support  each  other, 
their  relations  are  reciprocal. 

It  is  evident,  then,  that  the  second  of  the  constitutive  principles, 
which  has  been  discussed  as  intensive  quantity,  appeals  to  causality 
and  its  ground  in  the  permanent  substance'  through  the  category  of 
community.  We  have  therefore  to  leave  the  idea  of  the  construction 
of  objects  in  experience,  in  so  far  as  that  construction  is  of  possibilities 
only,  and  turn  from  the  constitutive  principles  to  the  regulative  principles 
of  causality  and  reciprocity,  which  are  shown  to  be  involved  in  the  idea 
of  construction.  After  Kant's  notions  of  causality  and  of  reciprocity 
have  been  examined,  it  can  be  shown,  I  think,  that  the  distinction 
between  constitutive  and  regulative  principles  is  merely  formal,  and 
that  any  principle  that  is  really  operative  in  experience  proceeds  in  both 
a  constitutive  and  a  regulative  way. 

In  taking  up  the  examination  of  causality,  I  do  not  undertake  to 
show  its  formal  relation,  through  its  "  deduction, "  to  the  other  concepts. 
That  it  has  a  relation  to  the  temporal  "inner"  experience  as  schematized 
by  Kant  as  quantity,  and  to  "objectified"  or  outer  experience  as  repre- 
sented by  quality  (which,  however,  has  more  knowledge  significance 
than  is  expressed  in  intensive  quantity),  has  already  been  shown.  It 
will  be  sufficient  for  our  purposes  to  take  up  the  idea  of  causality  as  the 
rule  of  synthesis. 

It  is  evident  that  the  succession  of  our  subjective  representations 
does  not  necessarily  correspond  to  the  succession  of  the  manifold  of  an 
object.  If  they  did  so  correspond,  consciousness  would  pronounce 
immediately  upon  the  object,  or  the  object  would  be  merely  the  con- 
sciousness of  the  subjective  succession.  But  "the  phenomenon,  in 
contradistinction  to  the  representations  of  our  apprehension,  can  only 
be  represented  as  the  object  different  from  them,  if  it  is  subject  to  a  rule 
distinguishing  it  from  every  other  apprehension,  and  necessitating  a 
certain  kind  of  conjunction  of  the  manifold.  That  which  in  the  phe- 
nomenon contains  the  condition  of  this  necessary  rule  of  apprehension  is 
the  object.'"^  Thus  the  succession  of  representations  is  under  some  sort 
of  necessity,  otherwise  the  play  of  fancy  would  operate  upon  nature  as 
a  free  cause.     But  it  is  just  as  our  fancy  is  free  that  we  determine  some 

'  A.,  p.  187;  B.,  p.  230:  "Hence  a  place  has  been  assigned  to  this  category  (sub- 
stance) under  the  title  of  relation,  not  so  much  because  it  contains  itself  a  relation,  as 
because  it  contains  their  condition." 

'A.,  p.  191;  B.,  p.  236. 


niK   RKGULATIVE    PRINCIPLES  39 

subjective  successions  as  having  no  objective  reference.  It  is  the  case 
where  there  is  no  constraint  ujwn  the  internal  succession  which  sets  the 
problem  of  objectivity.  For,  "our  thought  of  the  reference  of  knowl- 
edge to  its  object  carries  with  it  something  of  necessity;  for  the  object 
is  regarded  as  that  which  hinders  the  elements  of  our  knowledge  of  it 
from  coming  upon  us  pell  mell  and  at  haphazard,  and  causes  them  to  be 
determined  a  priori  in  certain  ways.  For,  just  in  so  far  as  our  ideas 
are  to  refer  to  an  object,  they  must  necessarily  agree  with  each  other  in 
reference  to  it,  i.e.,  they  must  have  that  unity  which  constitutes  the 
conception  of  an  object."'  Agreement  among  our  ideas  however,  does 
not  account  for  constraint  upon  the  way  in  which  they  agree,  or  does 
not  show  the  object  as  dilTerent  in  any  way  from  the  complex  of  ideas, 
unless  we  are  to  be  satisfied  in  saying  that  the  object  is  nothing  more 
than  the  abstract  representation  of  the  relations  among  ideas.  But 
such  a  realistic  demand  would  call  for  a  determination  of  the  object  as 
e.xternal  to  experience,  in  which  case  the  fundamental  question  of  the 
reference  of  thought  to  objects  could  not  arise.  In  some  sense  the 
relations  among  ideas  must  give  us  the  object.  While  we  do  distinguish 
the  subjective  succession  from  something  which  we  call  the  object,  yet 
this  distinction  must  be  accounted  for  through  a  rule  which  identifies 
the  elements  distinguished.  Thus,  "we  take  that  which  lies  in  our 
successive  apprehension  to  be  mere  ideas,  while  we  regard  the  phenomenon 
which  is  given  to  us  through  them  as  the  object  of  these  ideas,  with  which 
the  conception  we  draw  from  the  ideas  of  apprehension  is  required  to 
agree:  though  in  truth  the  object  in  question  is  nothing  but  those  very 
ideas  as  a  complex  unity.  "^ 

That  we  have  objects  in  our  experience  is  due  to  the  fact  that  we 
apprehend  a  succession  of  representations  as  a  unity.  But  this  succes- 
sion involves  breadth,  as  we  shall  see  later.  Our  consciousness  of  any 
term  in  the  succession  is  not  complete  in  itself;  rather,  the  consciousness 
of  a  single  element  is  impossible  if  we  are  to  have  experience.  Thus  a 
given  term  would  not  be  a  sequent  except  as  it  is  conceived  as  following 
upon  another,  since  its  place  in  time  could  not  be  established  except  in 
relation  to  another  of  its  kind.  A  term  cannot  be  "placed"  with  refer- 
ence to  time  itself,  since  the  latter  cannot  be  perceived.  Nor  can  the 
term  be  related  to  empty  time,  for  this  would  involve  its  creation,  and  the 
creative  cause  is  not  allowed  under  the  idea  of  causation  as  uniformity 
of  sequence  in  time.-'    The  unity  of  a  complex  of  ideas  means,  then, 

'  A.,  p.  104.  J  .v.,  p.  Jo<>;   H.,  p.  :si. 

'.\.,  p.  291;  n.,  p.  236. 


40  THE   CONSTITUTIVE   AND   REGULATIVE   PRINCIPLES   IN   K.-\NT 

simply  that  ideas  are  ideas  only  in  complexes,  for  otherwise  there  is  no 
possibility  of  experience.  Now,  for  Kant,  there  can  be  no  sequence  of 
unrelated  terms.  This  would  be  a  consciousness  of  pure  quantity  under 
the  sole  condition  of  time,  and  as  schematized  as  number,  would  be 
merely  the  computation  of  empty  times  as  in  counting.  But  times  have 
to  be  filled  before  their  enumeration  has  any  consequence  for  knowl- 
edge, as  was  shown  by  the  fact  that  Kant  had  to  appeal  to  the  real  in 
space  in  order  to  make  the  quantity  consciousness  constitutive.  The 
counting  of  empty  times  is  mere  fancy,  a  figment  of  the  brain ;  an  attempt 
to  grind  with  the  conscious  mill  when  there  is  nothing  in  the  hopper. 
Some  sort  of  connection  is  needed. 

But  does  the  necessity  of  a  relation  make  the  relation,  when  found, 
one  of  necessity  ?  If  we  have  to  answer  this  question  affirmatively,  the 
conception  of  causation  as  uniformity  of  sequence  in  time  will  have  to  be 
modified.  The  necessity  of  a  relation  between  the  b  of  the  present 
moment  and  the  a  of  the  immediately  previous,  cannot  be  understood 
in  terms  of  the  times  in  which  they  occur,  nor  in  terms  of  the  inner  con- 
sciousness whose  form  is  time,  but  can  be  understood  only  when  the 
objective  character  is  added  to  the  consciousness  in  terms  of  coexistence. 
The  a  and  the  h,  when  there  is  question  of  the  reality  concerned,  are 
simultaneous,  that  is,  they  are  capable  of  a  relation  which  does  not 
involve  any  quantity  of  time  at  all.  So  far  as  the  objective  aspect  of 
the  situation  is  concerned,  the  whole  situation  occupies  a  point  of  time, 
which  cannot  be  compounded  into  time.  The  ah  situation  stands  in 
a  line  at  right  angles  to  the  direction  of  the  time  flow,  and  the  time  flow 
is  significant  only  in  that  it  leads  to  the  "place"  of  that  situation.  It 
is,  then,  their  simultaneity  in  time  and  their  coexistence  in  space  which 
provides  the  objective  character  for  terms  of  a  sequence.  And  this  is 
what  was  meant  when  it  was  said  above  that  quantity  appeals  through 
substance  to  causation,  when  there  is  question  of  the  constitution  of  the 
object  of  knowledge.  Thus,  "  it  is  impossible  for  anyone  by  mere  think- 
ing, without  an  example,  to  comprehend  how,  out  of  a  given  state  of  a 
thing,  an  opposite  state  of  the  same  thing  should  follow;  nay,  he  cannot 
attach  any  meaning  to  such  an  idea  without  a  perception.  And  the 
perception  required  is  that  of  the  motion  of  a  point  in  space,  the  exist- 
ence of  which  in  different  places  (as  a  consequence  of  opposite  determina- 
tions) alone  makes  it  possible  for  us  to  realize  change  to  ourselves.  For, 
in  order  subsequently  to  make  even  inner  change  intelligible  to  our- 
selves, we  need  to  figure  time,  as  the  form  of  inner  sense,  by  a  line,  and 
the  inner  change  by  the  drawing  of  this  line  (motion) :  thus  using  exter- 


THE   REGULATIVE   PRINCIPLES  4 1 

nal  perception  as  a  means  to  the  understanding  t)f  our  own  successive 
existence  in  different  states.  And  the  reason  of  this  is,  that  all  change 
presupix)ses  in  the  perception  of  it  something  permanent  ere  it  can  be 
perceived  as  change,  but  that  in  inner  sense  no  permanent  perception 
can  be  found."' 

This  reference  of  the  objective  to  space  is  not  to  be  taken  in  a  real- 
istic sense.  For  change  in  space  (motion),  as  a  knowledge  clement,  is 
determined,  for  Kant,  in  exactly  the  same  way  as  the  inner  or  temporal 
succession  within  the  object.  The  significance  of  the  spatial  reference 
here  is  that,  for  the  determination  of  the  concrete  object  in  experience, 
the  whole  sum  of  the  conditions  under  which  an  experience  is  possible 
is  required  to  be  employed.  That  sum  of  conditions  as  involved  thus 
far  includes  space,  time,  and  causation,  with  the  ground  of  the  latter  in 
the  permanent.  These  we  have  examined,  but  it  yet  remains  to  be  shown 
how  causation  must  be  further  modified  in  order  that  it  may  operate  as 
a  condition  of  experience  when  the  latter  is  regarded  in  its  full  import. 

What  has  been  established  thus  far,  for  Kant,  is  that  if  there  are  to 
be  objects  in  experience,  there  must  be  relations  of  necessity^  among 
those  objects,  and  that  these  by  their  nature  e.xercise  a  constraint  upon 
the  way  in  which  representations  are  united  in  consciousness.  This 
way  of  representation  is  a  rule  of  synthesis,  and  our  consciousness  of 
this  rule  is  our  guarantee  that  our  thought  embodies  the  real  and  that 
we  are  not  dreaming. 

While  causality  is  regarded  in  its  temporal  relations  only,  it  must 
lead  to  such  a  view  as  regards  experience  in  a  linear  way,  or  as  if  it  were 
of  only  one  dimension.^  This  empties  time  of  any  objective  character 
and  leaves  our  conscious  constructions  "subjective"  in  the  sense  that 
there  is  no  "place"  where  those  constructions  should  issue,  and  thus 
renders  the  process  inconsequential.  It  represents  just  such  a  con- 
ception as  the  continuity  of  time,  when  time  is  regarded  as  "an  infinite 
given  whole."  It  is  the  homogeneous  which  is  not  yet  a  manifold; 
that  is,  there  are  no  "places"  with  individuality  sufficient  to  give  rise 
to  the  concept  of  a  relation,  and  so  long  as  there  are  no  differences  where 
relations  may  obtain,  the  idea  of  a  cause  cannot  arise.     Here  it  might 

'  B.,  p.  29^. 

'  Whether  this  necessity  is  one  of  fact  or  one  of  act  does  not  matter  here.  Hume 
is  answered  in  any  case. 

J  This  point  is  made  by  O'Sullivan,  Old  Criticism  and  Xnc  Pragmatism,  p.  232, 
where  Kant's  view  is  called  a  "streak"  view  of  causality.  I  point  out,  however,  that 
the  deficiency  of  causality  is  made  good  by  regarding  reciprocity  as  merely  a  part  of 
that  conception. 


42  THE   CONSTITUTIVE   AND   REGULATIVE   PRINCIPLES   IN   KANT 

be  said  that  time  is  ideal  in  the  sense  that  it  is  a  ground  of  conceived 
differences,  and  it  would  have  significance  in  that  by  it  the  homogeneity 
is  broken  up  into  perceptual  atoms,  thus  providing  a  reason  for  the 
question  of  the  structure  of  experience.  But  such  abstractions  must 
be  left  behind  if  we  are  to  give  to  causality  any  experiential  signification. 
More  than  time,  whether  ideal  or  real,  must  be  involved  before  there  is 
approach  to  the  concrete  object,  and  we  may  attempt  to  point  out  some 
relations  which  are  non-temporal  but  which  are  yet  instrumental  through 
causality  in  determining  the  object.  These  relations  may  be  found  as 
characters  involved  in  causality  itself.  And  as  causality  is  regarded 
as  a  regulative  principle,  that  is,  as  operative  within  experience  rather 
than  upon  experience,  it  will  be  necessary  to  find  the  characters  of  caus- 
ality as  attributes  of  experience  itself. 

If  we  follow  Kant  in  "drawing  a  line"  to  represent  our  conscious 
values,  we  may  carry  further  our  figure  of  the  "field"  or  the  "sphere" 
of  experience.  It  may  be  true  that  the  ultimate  limit  to  which  we  can 
carry  analysis  is  the  pure  time  sequence  which  we  conceive  of  as  of  only 
one  dimension.  But  our  limit  is  in  this  case  ultra-experiential  and  there- 
fore an  abstraction.  It  may  be  an  element  of  the  instrumental  devices 
of  our  thinking,  but  the  very  question  of  the  nature  of  knowledge  shows 
that  it  is  not  necessarily  on  that  account  an  element  of  experience  before 
the  latter  is  emasculated  by  abstraction.  The  one-dimensional  element 
is  of  significance  only  in  establishing  a  locus,  but  even  to  do  this  there 
is  required  either  previously  established  loci  or  a  pluralizing  of  the  line. 
If  there  are  loci  already  established,  our  element  is  no  longer  elemental, 
since  its  character  is  determined  by  those  of  the  elements  with  reference 
to  which  it  was  determined,  and  if  the  line  is  pluralized,  there  are  rela- 
tions involved  which  are  not  merely  linear  or  temporal.  The  case  where 
b  follows  a  is  not  so  simple  as  it  seems,  and  so  far  as  our  concern  is  with 
the  consciousness  of  the  object,  we  can  say  that  our  consciousness  is  of 
either  a  ox  b  alone.  This,  of  course,  assumes  that  a  and  b  are  not  the 
simple  elements  that  our  symbolism  takes  them  to  be.  As  centers  in 
experience,  they  have  individually  all  the  quantitative  and  qualitative 
characters  that  belong  to  the  events  between  which  causation  is  sup- 
posed to  apply.  That  is,  within  each  of  them,  as  a  whole  in  experience, 
causation  is  already  operative;  and  this  is  true  even  in  Kant's  sense, 
as  is  shown  when  each  of  them  is  supposed  to  represent  an  event  in 
possible  experience.  They  are  possible  experiences,  otherwise  we  should 
not  be  concerned  with  them ;  and,  as  such,  causation  is  already  assumed. 
The  question  of  how  or  why  b  follows  a  is  then  to  be  answered  through 


THE    RKGUI.ATIVE    PRINCIPLES  43 

an  appreciation  of  the  characters  which  belong  to  each.  And  in  their 
examination  a  and  b  turn  out  to  be  complex  events,  and  the  "necessity" 
of  the  fact  that  they  cannot  be  separated  cannot  be  established  as  merely 
the  accident  that  b  follows  a  tcmiwrally.'  That  b  does  follow  a  in  time 
may  be  due  to  the  "necessity"  that  as  knowledge-values  the  one  is 
incomplete  without  the  other.  Besides,  there  are  relations  which  all 
agree  are  causal  and  in  which  the  temporal  relation  applies  only  figura- 
tively, or  in  a  sense  that  denies  the  essential  character  of  time,  namely, 
its  succession,  or  rather  the  succession  in  time.  Such  a  relation  is  that 
of  water  to  its  containing  vessel,  or  that  of  the  ball  which  rests  on  a  soft 
cushion.  And  this  relation,  as  causal,  is  not  explained  by  saying  that 
cause  and  elTect  are  contemporaneous,  or  that  the  cause  continues  after 
the  elTect  has  begun,  if  cause  is  a  matter  of  temporal  sequence.  Sequence 
in  such  a  case  ceases  to  be  temporal  or  progressive,  and  takes  its  signifi- 
cance (if  it  have  any)  from  the  conceived  material  or  substantial  ground 
involved  in  a  physical  law.  And  here  we  have  left  the  temporal  sequence 
aside,  and  are  appealing  to  the  conditions  of  its  "ostensive"  represen- 
tation in  a  relation  of  space.  The  causal  notion  as  time  sequence  has 
in  this  case  quite  slipped  our  mind,  and  we  find  ourselves  attempting 
merely  to  furnish  for  that  sequence  an  expression  in  spatial  coexistence. 
The  "necessity"  of  the  causal  relation  is  in  this  case  merely  the  fact 
that  substance  or  matter  as  the  coexistent  in  space  is  necessary  to  give 
an  objective  character  to  our  inner  representation  of  time.  Thus  in 
appealing  to  the  temporal  sequence  we  show  that  our  interest  is  not 
merely  to  describe  relations  of  causation  as  experience  shows  them  to  us 
but  that  we  are  looking  for  a  ground  or  a  reason  for  causation  which 
might  be  found  by  pulling  experience  apart.  Ultimately,  we  are  justi- 
fied in  seeking  a  ground  of  causation;  but  this  ground,  when  found, 
shows  only  the  necessity  of  causality  as  a  relation,  or  that  causation  as 
a  law  is  necessary-  to  consecutive  thinking;  it  shows  that  a  law  of  neces- 
sity is  necessar}'  to  thought;  but  it  does  not  show  in  what  the  necessity 
of  the  relation  as  an  internal  character  consists,  that  is,  does  not  express 
in  experiential  or  objective  terms  the  connections  which  are  due  to 
causation.  The  elements  which  constitute  the  necessity  of  causation 
are  the  familiar  characters  of  objects  in  experience  conceived  as  "corn- 
possible,"  or  as  the  unity  of  a  complex  whole. 

The  law  of  causation  is  a  law  of  thought.     It  means  that  if  there  is 

'  The  causal  relation  as  time  sequence  is,  perhaps,  properly  taken  care  of  by  the 
psychological  law  of  .Association,  if  psychology  "  has  only  to  do  with  the  natural  history 
of  subjective  prcKCSses  as  they  occur  in  time." — Stout,  Manual  oj  Psychology,  p.  6. 


44  THE   CONSTITUTIVE   AND   REGULATI\'E    PRINCIPLES   IN   KANT 

to  be  experience  at  all  there  must  be  a  consecutiveness  in  the  occurrence 
in  thought  of  those  elements  which  are  to  make  that  thinking  possible  of 
objectification  in  experience.  This  consecutiveness  is  neither  temporal 
nor  quantitative,  if  our  criticism  of  the  time-consciousness  has  not 
failed.  As  temporal  or  quantitative,  it  fails  of  objectification;  for,  as 
such,  nature  is  neither  sequential  nor  consequential.  Nature  is;  experi- 
ence has  a  definite  constitution;  what  it  may  be  in  itself  or  for  itself 
does  not  concern  us.  But  the  object  of  that  thought  in  which  causation 
holds  as  a  tie  necessary  under  the  conception  of  the  possibility  of  experi- 
ence is  of  concern  to  us,  and  we  may  by  simple  description  find  the 
characters  of  that  object  which  constitutes  the  necessity  of  causation. 
Thus,  even  though  causation  must  be  regarded  as  a  conceptual  necessity, 
the  elements  which  constitute  that  necessity  are  the  familiar  characters 
of  objects  in  experience.  And  although  the  necessity  is  conceptual, 
its  objectification  is  "factual." 

While  b  follows  a  only  in  a  temporal  sense,  and  as  independent  of 
other  terms  than  those  of  the  series  to  which  a  and  b  belong,  nothing 
further  can  be  said.  And  the  fact  that  no  connection  can  be  made 
between  this  series  and  other  serial  complexes  is  sufficient  evidence 
that  the  temporal  series  is  not  what  we  ordinarily  mean  by  causation. 
There  can  be  no  necessity  in  what  is  not  possible  of  connection,  even 
if  the  connection  be  only  ideal,  with  other  experiences  of  its  kind.  And 
for  knowledge  purposes,  connections  of  causation  are  all  of  the  same 
kind.  Indeed,  necessity  could  mean  nothing,  if  there  were  cases  where 
it  were  not  necessary.  This  leads  us  to  the  conception  of  the  object, 
if  it  is  the  object  of  knowledge  we  are  seeking,  as  the  center  of  an  infinite 
number  of  relations.  The  infinite  is  not  used  here  in  the  absolutist 
sense,  but  in  the  sense  of  an  attribute  of  the  possibility  of  experience. 
The  object  is  that  which  will  connect  harmoniously  with  the  complex 
of  my  interests  and  purposes  from  any  point  I  may  wish  to  approach  it. 
And  the  number  of  ways  of  approach  to  the  object  is  limited  by  the 
possibility  of  experience  only.  If  I  approach  the  object  from  the  direc- 
tion of  the  purpose  of  my  thought,  where  I  mean  it  as  that  which  will 
satisfy  my  instinct  to  know,  the  object  is  an  object  of  my  thought.  If 
I  approach  it  as  that  which  will  convert  my  intention  into  action,  it  is 
an  object  of  my  will.  But  in  any  case  it  is  a  center  of  all  the  various 
relations  involved  in  the  process  of  my  defining  my  purpose  to  myself, 
and  thus  represents  that  which  holds  my  experience  together  when  an 
advance  is  attempted  on  a  basis  of  that  experience.  If  my  experience 
is  to  remain  intact,  at  this  point  there  must  be  an  object.     Hence,  b  and 


J 


THE   REGULATIVE   PRINCIPLES  45 

b  only,  follows  a  here,  because,  if  it  did  not,  a  with  the  whole  complex 
of  temporal  series  which  intersect  in  this  point  to  make  it  a,  and  which 
we  call  an  experience,  would  fall  asunder  and  become  unreal.  But  the 
unreality  of  a  would  involve  the  denial  of  our  thouj^ht  purpose  as  the 
summation  of  our  whole  experience;  hence  b  must  follow  a  not  only 
because  our  purpose  demands  an  object,  but  also  because  our  experience 
vanishes  if  this  sequence  is  not  realized.  In  a  sense  it  is  the  possibility 
of  experience  which  gives  the  law  to  the  experience  that  is  actual.  So 
the  necessity  of  causality  is  the  expression  of  our  instinct  toward  the 
self-preservation  of  our  thinkinf^. 

The  necessity  of  causality  seems  thus  to  demand  a  general  statement 
as  a  law  of  the  constitution  of  experience,  and  we  are  inevitably  led  to 
that  general  law  from  the  realization  of  the  full  import  of  any  particular 
case  of  sequence.  It  must  be  borne  in  mind,  however,  that  the  "deduc- 
tion" of  necessity  must  proceed  from  the  inquiry  into  the  nature  of  the 
object  which  is  possible  in  experience,  and  not  from  the  analysis  of  the 
abstract  concept  of  that  possibility.  The  full  appreciation  of  the  con- 
crete object-content  involves  the  notion  of  the  possibility  of  experience 
as  well  as  that  of  necessary  cause.  This  object,  as  we  have  seen,  is  the 
center  of  an  indefinite  number  of  relations;  0  is  not  merely  a,  but  a,  c',  a", 
.  .  .  .  b.  But  each  of  the  terms  is  a  center  of  an  indefinite  number  of 
such  series,  thus  giving  breadth  to  the  objective  situation.  An  instance 
of  causality  is  not  a  case  in  which  a  particular  event  follows  another 
particular  event;  there  are  no  particular  events;  except  we  say  that 
the  particular  is  representative  of  the  whole  complex  of  experience, 
and  then  we  incur  all  the  dangers  involved  in  symbolism.  An  instance 
of  causality  must  be  conceived  as  nature  =  6  following  nature  =  c.  The 
abstract  a  must  be  replaced  in  the  concrete  nucleus  of  relations  from 
which  abstraction  withdrew  it.  And  the  particulars  of  time  sequence 
are  merely  the  symbols  in  which  we  represent  the  whole  of  nature  as  it 
appears  to  us  in  our  unrellective  moments.  The  sequence  of  aiuse  and 
effect  cannot,  as  we  have  seen,  be  represented  satisfactorily  in  the  serial 
expression  of  time  lapse,  and  what  has  been  Siiid  about  the  time  con- 
sciousness involving  the  space  consciousness  was  said  with  the  purpose  to 
show  the  pure  time  lapse  an  abstraction,  and  therefore  not  a  valid  con- 
ception under  the  possibility  of  experience.  The  same  considerations 
which  compelled  the  attempt  at  the  synthesis  of  the  time  form  with  the 
space  form  in  order  that  we  might  have  a  concept  for  objectivity,  now 
compel  us  to  add  to  the  space-time  categon,'  the  idea  of  causality. 
But  the  space-time-causality  category,  when  employed  in  the  operation 


46  THE   CONSTITUTIVE   AND   REGULATIVE   PRINCIPLES   IN   KANT 

of  the  synthesis  of  experience,  requires  also  the  notion  of  substance  as 
an  objective  ground,  and  when  considered  with  respect  to  the  possibility 
of  experience,  this  ground  is  generalized  in  the  notion  of  reciprocity. 

In  taking  up  the  notion  of  reciprocity  little  more  need  be  said  than 
was  said  in  showing  how  the  notion  is  involved  in  that  of  causality.  It 
can  be  "deduced  from  the  idea"  of  causality  when  the  latter  concept  is 
shown  from  the  examination  of  the  concrete  object  to  be  necessary  to 
the  concept  of  an  object  at  all.  The  principle  of  community  is  better 
stated  in  the  second  edition  of  the  Krilik.  In  the  first  there  seems  to 
be  an  attempt  to  state  the  principle  in  such  a  way  as  not  to  involve 
causality.  As  such,  it  might  be  a  "fact"  about  a  realistic  world  which 
stands  statically  in  space  alone.  But  it  is  probable  that  the  period  be- 
tween the  appearance  of  the  first  and  of  the  second  editions  was  repre- 
sented in  Kant's  mind  by  an  attempt  to  connect  more  closely  some  of 
the  things  he  had  put  asunder.^  At  any  rate,  the  statement  of  the  second 
edition  shows  the  influence  of  the  progressiveness  of  the  time  idea 
together  with  that  of  the  coexistential  character  of  the  space  idea. 

Starting,  as  Kant  always  does,  with  the  inner  experience,  there  is 
the  fact  of  the  time  sequence.  What  purport  to  be  objects  are  passing 
in  endless  line  and  in  the  same  direction.  This  is,  however,  a  subjective 
dream,  and  he  is  aroused  from  it  by  the  possibility  of  the  reversal  of  the 
direction  of  the  progress,  since,  as  temporal,  that  progress  gives  us  only 
one  thing  in  one  time  to  doomsday.  As  temporal  only,  our  conscious- 
ness would  be  as  a  mirror  before  which  the  spokes  of  a  revolving  wheel 
would  appear  one  after  the  other  eternally.  But  the  rude  fact  that 
things  do  appear  in  other  than  the  one-at-a-time  way  is  evidence  that 
things  are  determined  in  other  ways  than  that  of  the  time  sense  form. 
"Hence,"  as  Kant  puts  it  in  the  Proof  of  the  Third  Analogy  (2d  ed.), 
"we  require  a  concept  of  understanding  of  the  reciprocal  sequence  of 
determinations  of  things  existing  at  the  same  time,  but  outside  each 
other,  in  order  to  be  able  to  say,  that  the  reciprocal  sequence  of  the 
perceptions  is  founded  in  the  object,  and  thus  to  represent  their  co- 
existence as  objective.  The  relation  of  substances,  however,  of  which 
the  first  has  determinations  the  ground  of  which  is  contained  in  the  other, 
is  the  relation  of  influence,  and  if,  conversely  also,  the  first  contains  the 
ground  of  determinations  in  the  latter,  the  relation  is  that  of  community 
or  reciprocity.     Hence  the  coexistence  of  substances  in  space  cannot 

•  Kant's  reference  of  llic  time  consciousness  to  the  space  consciousness  for  exempli- 
fication is  dated  by  Caird  within  the  period  between  the  appearance  of  the  two  editions 
of  the  Krilik.     See  Critical  Philosophy  oj  Kant,  Vol.  I,  p.  500. 


THE    REGULATIVE    PRINCIPLES  47 

be  known  in  experience  otherwise  than  under  the  supposition  of  recii)ro- 
cal  action:  and  this  is  therefore  the  condition  also  of  the  possibiUty  of 
things  themselves  as  objects  of  experience"' 

Under  the  idea  of  reciprocal  action,  we  have  to  think  of  experience 
as  the  limit  within  which  all  our  purposes  tend,  and  in  which  these 
various  purposes  are  mutually  determined  in  their  common  j)urix)se  to 
construct  the  object.  The  object  is  then  the  "whole  of  experience" 
in  the  sense  that  it  is  the  sole  product  of  experience,  and  that  it  repre- 
sents the  dynamical  tie  which  holds  experience  together  in  such  a  way 
that  we  are  able  to  proceed  upon  it  as  a  basis  for  the  production  of  new- 
objects.  Objects  are  thus  wholes  of  dynamical  relations,  and  their 
wholeness  is  their  reference  to  possible  experience.  Thus  there  is  no 
need  for  the  "infinite  given  whole"  of  sense;  in  fact,  possible  experience 
does  not  permit  such  a  concept.  Wholes  are  wholes  with  reference  to 
the  possibility  of  experience  only.  Experience  is  itself,  as  the  fmal 
assumption,  the  only  "infinite  given  whole." 

But  an  object  is  such  for  me  and  a  significant  fact  for  my  experience, 
and  is  determined  so  by  my  experience,  because  it  as  such  stands  or 
acts  as  related  to  what  are  for  me  other  objects.  Now  the  criterion  for 
its  objectivity  is  to  be  found  in  the  fact  that  it  is  related  to  other  objects, 
that  is,  in  the  fact  that  in  my  purposes  to  determine  other  objects  it 
appears  as  a  guide  to  those  objects.  It  is  not  that  I  think  this  object, 
but  the  fact  that  by  it  I  think  other  objects;  it  is  a  means  whereby  my 
present  communicates  with  what  is  to  be  my  present,  to  put  it  in  tem- 
poral terms.  My  present  thus  takes  its  place  in  the  "  society  "  of  objects. 
If  the  present  occupies  me  to  the  full  extent  or  reach  of  the  relations 
which  make  up  possible  experience  for  me,  then  I  say  that  I  know  the 
object  as  an  end,  since  my  purpose  to  know  is  fully  satisfied.  But  this 
is  probably  emotional  realization,  where  the  distinction  of  objects  no 
longer  obtains,  and  where  our  theory  of  knowledge  has  no  business  to 
intrude. 

But  the  moments  of  my  private  thinking  comprise  only  a  very  small 
portion  of  experience.  The  moments  are  rare  when  we  "sit  down  to 
reflect,"  as  Berkeley  says.  Consequently  the  greater  portion  of  the 
objective  world  is  not  determined  for  us  in  the  "metaphysical"  society. 
The  point  is  here,  however,  that  the  possibility  of  my  thinking  not  in  a 
merely  temporal  or  sequential  way,  but  in  a  way  that  involves  objects 
and  is  therefore  consequential,  depends  uix)n  the  fact  that  the  fabric  of 
experience  is  continuous  through  the  characters  that  are  common  to 

'B.,  p.  257. 


48  THE   CONSTITUTIVE   AND   REGULATIVE   PRINCIPLES   IN   KANT 

objects.  In  other  words  the  possibility  of  experience  is  a  social  concept.' 
But  the  fact  that  characters  are  common  to  objects  does  not  imply  that 
objects  or  relations  are  necessarily  all  of  a  kind;  characters  as  binding 
relations  are  not  necessarily  similarities.  Difference  is  a  tie  that  binds; 
and  let  the  difference  be  as  great  as  may  be,  the  fact  that  I  assert  it  as 
existing  or  subsisting  between  objects  makes  these  objects  of  a  piece 
with  the  rest  of  experience.  The  question  is  here  not  of  the  kind  or 
degree  of  relationship,  but  rather  of  the  necessity  or  the  fact  of  relation- 
ship. And,  as  we  have  seen,  the  necessity  of  a  relationship  makes  a 
relationship  of  necessity.  And  the  possibility  of  experience  provides 
the  necessity  for  a  relationship  throughout  the  extent  of  experience. 
Necessity  is  then  an  object,  since  it  is  matter  of  fact. 

The  object  of  thought  as  such  has  been  developed,  and  although 
the  discussion  of  it  seems  abstract  and  general  enough,  that  develop- 
ment was  undertaken  merely  to  show  that  our  reflective  thinking  is 
objective,  or  constitutes  objects  after  the  pattern  of  possible  experience. 
The  situations  developed  are  theoretical  and  the  objects  concerned  are 
of  a  definite  kind.  But  the  same  development  may  be  followed  from 
the  opposite  direction  and  the  objects  involved  sho^vn  to  be  of  the  same 
kind.  That  is,  the  objects  reached  through  a  consideration  of  our 
theoretical  purposes  are  the  same  as  those  reached  through  the  consider- 
ation of  our  practical  purposes,  and  the  way  is  perhaps  the  more  direct 
in  the  latter  case. 

Appealing  once  more  to  the  possibility  of  experience,  it  must,  it 
seems,  be  said  that  the  theoretical  construction  of  objects  in  experience 
is  dependent  genetically  upon  the  practical  construction  or  assumption 
of  objects.  Unreflective  activity,  such  as  we  saw  in  the  case  of  the  time 
quantity  consciousness,  proceeds  without  defining  objects  explicitly, 
and  the  possibility  of  their  being  theoretically  defined  lines  in  the  sugges- 
tions which  reflection  gathers  from  that  procedure.  These  suggestions 
consist  of  the  organized  methods  of  action  and  characteristic  modes  of 
reaction  which  are  imbedded  in  the  individual  and  the  social  life.  As 
such  they  are  "material"  conditions  of  the  possibility  of  experience. 
What  the  present  means  to  me  when  I  have  not  sat  down  to  reflect  is 
what  is  contained  in  my  previous  life  (either  as  an  individual  or  as  a 
representative  of  humanity  at  large)  in  the  shape  of  what  such  moments 
have  meant.  That  is,  its  meaning  is  the  form  I  can  give  it  when  I 
interpret  it  in  terms  of  remembered  similar  moments  together  with  the 
moments  which  have  succeeded  the  latter  as  their  issue.     What  will  be 

'  That  is,  a  concept  of  reciprocity;   "social"  in  a  metaphysical  sense. 


THK    RKGULATIVE    PRINCIPLES  49 

possible  for  me  in  this  moment  is  defined  in  axiomatic  fashion  in  terms 
of  what  has  been  actual  for  me  in  other  moments,  and  this  actuality 
points  the  way  for  nie  in  so  far  as  the  present  moment  is  not  unique  or 
strange. 

Reflection  as  the  conscious  determination  of  objects  is  called  for 
when  the  relations  between  what  appears  and  what  is  known  is  merely 
suggested  or  ix)intcd  to  by  what  has  become  axiomatic  in  experience. 
We  thus  are  able  often  to  "see"  a  relation  before  we  are  able  to  state  it, 
or  to  communicate  it  as  a  new  addition  to  our  present  stock.  The 
principles  of  our  familiar  possessions  are  regulative  here,  and  we  are 
able  to  state  that  at  this  point  there  must  be  an  object,  although  it  as 
yet  exists  only  in  the  form  of  its  general  conditions.  Its  place  in  time 
has  merely  been  determined.  But  established  methods  of  procedure 
so  converge  upon  this  point  that  all  that  is  required  to  "fill"  the  point 
is  carefully  to  follow  the  directions  indiaited  by  our  principles.  Thus 
we  discover  the  necessity  of  a  relation  which  turns  out  to  be  a  relation 
of  necessity;  and  defining  the  ix)int  as  the  intersection  of  our  principles 
is  defining  it  an  object  of  knowledge,  and  filling  it  with  reality.  The 
necessity  of  the  object  is  causation  when  we  have  connected  it  with  its 
kind  "in  nature,"  and  when  we  have  forgotten  the  ideal  elements  of 
purpose  which  discovered  it. 

It  is,  however,  true  that  not  all  points  indicated  by  our  established 
methods  of  procedure  are  realized  or  established  in  their  necessity.  The 
object  is  not  always  forthcoming.  And  for  this  there  are  various  reasons. 
It  may  be  merely  that  we  do  not  follow  out  sufficiently  far  the  suggestions 
given.  In  this  case  there  remains  an  open  problem;  yet  we  can  assert 
with  some  confidence  that  the  real  is  to  be  discovered  when  the  problem 
becomes  insistent  enough  to  absorb  our  efforts  to  the  fullest.  The 
object  is  a  problematical  one,  yet  it  may  be  used  if  we  will  remember 
that  it  hangs  under  the  shadow  of  doubt.  Or,  its  doubtfulness  may  be 
turned  to  account  in  the  search  for  its  necessity,  in  which  the  doubt 
vanishes  at  the  successful  issue  of  the  search. 

Again,  the  object  may  not  be  located  because  of  di)ubt  which  hangs 
over  some  of  the  principles  which  indicate  its  place.  Not  all  that  is 
organized  within  our  experience  is  understood  so  well  that  we  may 
de{:)end  upon  it  absolutely.  It  may  be  that  nothing  is  so  well  "known." 
Such  objects  are  the  hypothetical  ones  which  we  say  we  have  some  reason 
to  believe  are  related  by  necessity  to  our  experience,  but  which  have  not 
been  established  in  that  necessity.  Necessity  here  is  an  idealized  con- 
tingency, the  "as  if"  of  morality  and  religion.     Such  arc  also  the  ideals 


50  THE   CONSTITUTIVE   AND   REGULATIVE   PRINCIPLES   IN   KANT 

of  the  reason.  They  are  doubly  questionable,  in  that  their  place  as 
assigned  by  reflection  is  assigned  only  in  general  terms;  and  also  in  that 
the  principles  upon  which  the  assignment  is  made  are  themselves  of 
problematical  character. 

Such  hypothetical  objects  are  merely  based  upon  experience,  and 
the  basic  reference  is  so  remote  that  the  principles  used  in  their  case  as 
well  as  the  objects  themselves  are  only  conjectural.  They  require  to 
be  mentioned  only  by  way  of  illustrating  the  method  by  which  and  the 
extent  to  which  the  regulative  use  of  the  principles  may  be  carried  in  a 
speculative  way.  They  show  the  tendency  to  abstraction  which  results 
when  it  is  attempted  to  express  the  fulness  of  the  concrete.  They  go 
beyond  experience  in  the  search  of  the  necessity  which  is  to  provide  an 
organic  character  for  it,  and  the  result  is  the  hypostastis  of  a  factual 
necessity  into  one  of  hypothetically  absolute  character.  This  external 
necessity  is  clearly  self-contradictory.  The  necessity  in  experience  is 
nothing  more  nor  less  than  the  conceived  body  of  relations  which  are  to 
be  found  organizing  experience  at  any  moment. 

Thus  are  the  regulative  principles  constructive  of  objects  in  experi- 
ence, and  their  construction  extends  further  than  to  possible  objects. 
Kant 's  separation  of  the  two  kinds  of  principles  was  perhaps  due  to  his  | 

failure  to  grasp  the  full  significance  of  his  own  concept  of  the  possibility 
of  experience.     Neither  constitutive  nor  regulative  principles  are  con-  i 

structive  of  experience,  but  both  are  constructive  of  the  object  in  expe- 
rience. Experience  is  the  "infinite  given  whole,"  and  construction  has 
reference  not  to  its  extent  nor  its  content,  but  to  the  intent  of  that  of 
which  we  are  at  a  given  moment  conscious. 


CHAPTER   VI 
CONCLUSION 

I  shall  attempt  briclly  to  bring  together  the  various  lines  of  the 
argument  developed  by  Kant  upon  the  question  of  the  consciousness 
of  objects,  in  so  far  as  that  consciousness  is  determined  by  the  constitu- 
tive and  the  regulative  principles,  and  shall  then  follow  this  resume  with 
a  statement  of  what  I  think  are  the  natural  and  necessary  implications 
of  his  argument. 

The  first  result  of  reflection  is  the  fact  that  knowledge  is  of  objects. 
Are  the  objects,  in  any  case  and  in  any  sense,  the  results  of  reflection, 
or  do  they  merely  appear  in  reflection  ?  And  if  they  result  as  con- 
structions from  thought  either  as  reflective  or  as  unreflective,  in  what 
sense  is  reflection  to  be  taken  ?  Taking  up  the  matter  of  construction, 
Kant  seems  to  find  that  objects  are  constructed  finally  and  without 
doubt  or  question,  but  that  these  objects  represent  only  a  com- 
paratively small  part  of  what  we  ordinarily  regard  as  objects. 
Objects  which  are  constructed  are  mathematical,  or  are  objects  of 
quantity.  But  when  constructed,  it  is  evident  that  these  objects 
are  not  such  as  occur  or  appear  in  experience  when  our  purpose 
is  not  definitely  to  construct  them  as  objects.  And  objects  which 
are  not  directly  our  pur{X)se  do  appear.  It  is  evident,  then,  that  the 
possibility  of  the  definition  of  the  object  depends  in  some  way  upon 
the  structure  of  e.xperience  and  the  conditions  of  connection  and  perma- 
nence in  it.  Whatever  the  object  is,  it  is  of  the  same  sort  as  the  setting 
within  which  the  notion  of  the  object  arises.  Under  this  new  concep- 
tion of  it,  the  question  of  the  relation  of  thought  to  its  object  appears  to 
Kant  and  is  stated  by  him  as  that  of  the  possibility  of  experience. 

The  object,  however,  cannot  be  constructed  in  time  alone  as  is 
undertaken  in  the  discussion  of  quantity,  but  the  empty  and  inert  time 
elements  have  to  be  filled  with  the  cxperientially  substantial,  and  this 
element  comes  from  the  spatial  character  of  experience.  Space  and 
time  thus  united  give  the  dependablcncss  of  objects  in  experience,  or 
as  we  usually  call  it,  the  necessity  of  causation.  When  this  unitar>' 
view  of  space-time-causation  is  reached,  the  question  of  construction 
disappears,  since  its  meaninglessness  has  been  demonstrated.     Out  of 

SI 


52  THE   CONSTITUTIVE   AND   REGULATIVE   PRINCIPLES   IN    KANT 

this  causal  conception,  when  we  are  thinking  of  the  volume  of  experience, 
there  grows  a  conception  of  the  manifoldness  of  experience  which  is  not 
hopelessly  dissipating,  but  which  serves  on  the  contrary  to  justify  our 
unifold  conception.  The  realization  of  the  object  as  a  point  from  which 
issue  directions  of  purpose  whose  number  is  limited  only  by  possible 
experience,  gives  us  the  notion  of  the  object  as  the  core  of  an  individu- 
ality, and  through  this,  the  conception  of  experience  as  an  organism 
whose  law  is  social.  Here  the  logic  of  practice  meets  its  end  in  the  full 
definition  of  the  particularly  real  as  of  a  piece  with  the  whole  of  our 
ideals. 

And  herein  lies  the  significance  of  Kant's  guiding  idea  of  possible 
experience.  When  taken  as  the  sum  of  all  the  directions  which  my 
purpose  may  pursue  in  its  progress  from  my  present  as  a  hypothetical 
object,  it  supplies  me  -with  a  "rule  according  to  which  I  may  look  in 
experience  for  a  fourth  term,  or  a  characteristic  mark  by  which  I  may 
find  it.  "^  The  object  is  not  given  as  a  construction  in  the  form  of  ab- 
stract conditions.  It  appears  as  a  proof  or  justification  of  connections 
which  have  been  found  necessary  to  be  made  in  order  that  a  purpose 
may  be  worked  out.  No  addition  is  made  to  experience  by  introducing 
an  externally  new  element,  hence  construction  is  not  oj  experience,  but 
within  it.  Nor  can  the  act  of  construction  be  regarded  as  a  new  fact 
of  "reality"  since  it  is  presupposed  already  in  the  concept  of  possible 
experience.  There  can  be  no  experience  at  all  if  there  are  not  activities 
resulting  in  the  amplification  of  objects,  so  this  activity  is  included  in 
the  fundamental  assumption.  It  is  therefore  through  the  "character- 
istic marks"  of  objects  already  determined  in  experience  that  our 
principles  find  a  condition  of  their  use.  Hence  their  use  is  regulative 
with  respect  to  the  object  to  be  determined,  since  they  operate  accord- 
ing to  rules  contained  in  the  characteristics  of  objects  already  known, 
and  constitutive  with  reference  to  the  objects  from  whose  characters 
the  rules  are  obtained,  since  these  objects  are  re-formed  upon  the  basis 
of  their  reciprocal  relations.  The  distinction  of  constitutive  and  regula- 
tive principles  therefore  breaks  down,  since  the  two  kinds  of  principle 
represent  only  different  directions  of  the  same  process.  They  are  the 
same  process  with  respect  to  the  objects  involved,  for  so  far  as  the  prin- 
ciples are  concerned,  objects  are  all  of  a  kind.  They  are  permanent 
points  or  loci  established  in  order  to  determine  the  direction  of  a  purpose; 
and  their  objectivity  consists  in  their  significance  for  knowledge.  And  it 
makes  no  difference  whether  knowledge  is  regarded  as  the  goal  of  thought 

'  A.,  p.  180;  B.,  p.  222. 


{ 

< 


CONCLUSION  53 

in  a  speculative  sense,  or  as  the  basis  of  rules  of  action;  the  objects  are 
the  same  in  any  case. 

It  has  been  shown  that  the  distinction  between  the  constitutive  and 
the  regulative  principles  is  one  of  a  series  of  sunderings  which  extends 
throughout  Kant's  system.  The  distinction  of  sense  from  understand- 
ing gives  two  workls,  the  distinction  within  sense  between  time  and 
space  cuts  off  the  subjective  processes  from  the  substantially  permanent, 
thus  leaving  the  subjective  at  loose  ends  with  the  universe;  the  distinc- 
tion of  constitutive  and  regulative  principles  introduces  the  void  within 
the  society  of  objects,  defming  the  one  part  as  abstractions,  and  the 
other  as  atomistic  particulars.  If  on  the  contrary  we  begin  with  the 
principles,  recognizing  that  there  is  no  difference  of  their  objects,  we 
have  the  conditions  of  the  conception  of  an  unbroken  world;  and  with 
this  conception  we  have  the  thought  process  incorporated  within  the 
whole,  since  there  is  no  distinction  of  "inner"  and  "outer." 


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